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The Pax Britannica trilogy is Jan Morris’s masterly telling of the British Empire from the accession of Queen Victoria to the death of Winston Churchill. It is a towering achievement: informative, accessible, entertaining and written with all her usual bravura. Heaven’s Command, the first volume, takes us from the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the Diamond Jubilee in 1897, moving effortlessly across the Empire, from the shores of England to Fiji, Zululand, the Canadian prairies and beyond. Truly gripping history.
Jan Morris: Heaven's Command - An Imperial Progress (Unabridged)
Jan Morris Introduction
HEAVEN'S COMMAND: AN IMPERIAL PROGRESS
Chapter 1: 2
Chapter 1: 3
Chapter 1: 4
In Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow, entire communities…
Chapter 1: 5
Chapter 2: HIGH AND HOLY WORK
The refinery had a churchy look, its limestone finely dressed…
Chapter 2: 3
Chapter 2: 4
Chapter 2: 5
Chapter 2: 6
Freetown society was rich and strange. The founders…
Chapter 2: 7
Chapter 3: SWEET LIVES
Chapter 3: 2
Chapter 3: 3
It was idealism that changed all this.
Chapter 3: 4
Chapter 3: 5
Chapter 3: 6
Retief was delighted, and the Boers rode back…
Chapter 3: 7
Chapter 3: 8
Chapter 3: 9
Chapter 3: 10
Chapter 4: ROOTS INTO THEIR SOIL
Chapter 4: 2
Chapter 4: 3
Chapter 4: 4
Chapter 4: 5
Each Thug hunting posse with its attendant apostates ready for…
Chapter 4: 6
Chapter 4: 7
Chapter 5: LAWS OF WAR
Chapter 5: 2
Chapter 5: 3
Chapter 5: 4
Chapter 5: 5
Chapter 5: 6
Chapter 5: 7
Here, the Kabul army ensconced itself, with all its camels and camp…
Chapter 5: 8
Chapter 5: 9
Chapter 5: 10
Chapter 5: 11
Chapter 5: 12
Chapter 5: 13
Chapter 6: MERCHANT VENTURING
Chapter 6: 2
Chapter 6: 3
Chapter 6: 4
Chapter 6: 5
Chapter 6: 6
Yet it inspired amongst its employees a truly romantic sense…
Chapter 6: 7
Chapter 6: 8
Chapter 6: 9
Chapter 7: WHITE SETTLERS
Chapter 7: 2
Chapter 7: 3
So, the little city had been elevated by a number of good Regency…
Aborigines wandered drunk and dispossessed…
Chapter 7: 4
The first party disembarked upon the shore of what is now called…
Chapter 7: 5
Chapter 7: 6
Chapter 8: AN ACT OF GOD
Chapter 8: 2
Chapter 8: 3
The more cruelly the peasant was exploited, the more his family…
Chapter 8: 4
Chapter 8: 5
Mallow too had its castle, in a park at the end of town…
Chapter 8: 6
Chapter 8: 7
Even as the force paraded, news arrived that a body of police…
Chapter 8: 8
Chapter 8: 9
Chapter 9: WHAT A FINE MAN
Chapter 9: 2
Chapter 9: 3
Chapter 9: 4
A commission of some 80 young company men imposed…
Chapter 9: 5
John Lawrence grew into something different.
Chapter 9: 6
Like so many of his contemporaries, Nicholson first saw…
Chapter 9: 7
PART 2 CHAPTER 10: THE GROWING CONVICTION
Chapter 10: 2
Chapter 10: 3
Chapter 10: 4
And most of all the railways: those supremely British…
Chapter 10: 5
Chapter 10: 6
There were mills on the southern shore, and all around them…
Chapter 10: 7
Chapter 10: 8
Chapter 10: 9
Chapter 11: THE EPIC OF THE RACE
Chapter 11: 2
Chapter 11: 3
Chapter 11: 4
Chapter 11: 5
Chapter 11: 6
Chapter 11: 7
This pathetic action was to enter the mythology of the Empire…
Yet on June 23 the most determined rebel assault was beaten off.
Chapter 11: 8
Many of the Indian sepoys now deserted and by July 1858…
At the end of October word filtered in that a second relieving force…
Chapter 11: 9
Chapter 11: 10
Chapter 12: PAN AND MR. GLADSTONE
Chapter 12: 2
Chapter 12: 3
The gang plank was thrown ashore and from the cutter…
Chapter 12: 4
Chapter 12: 5
Chapter 12: 6
Chapter 12: 7
Chapter 12: 8
Chapter 12: 9
Chapter 12: 10
Chapter 12: 11
Chapter 13: THE IMPERIAL STYLE
Chapter 13: 2
Hill stations were never thought of by the Moghul rulers of India…
Chapter 13: 3
Chapter 13: 4
Chapter 13: 5
Chapter 13: 6
Chapter 13: 7
Chapter 14: ILLUSTRIOUS FOR THE NILE
Chapter 14: 2
In February 1858 they together became…
Chapter 14: 3
Chapter 14: 4
Chapter 14: 5
Chapter 14: 6
Chapter 14: 7
Chapter 14: 8
Chapter 15: GOVERNOR EYRE
Chapter 15: 2
Chapter 15: 3
Chapter 15: 4
Chapter 15: 5
Chapter 15: 6
Chapter 15: 7
Chapter 15: 8
Chapter 15: 9
Chapter 15: 10
Chapter 16: AIN'T THE PENTATEUCH QUEER
Explorers such as Speake or Grant saw themselves as God's scouts…
Chapter 16: 2
'But God has given us one little thing…'
Chapter 16: 3
In Cape Town Bishop Robert Gray, the Metropolitan…
Farcical scenes ensued. Colenzo, returning from London…
Chapter 16: 4
This occasion figures in every Anglo Indian memoir of the period.
Chapter 16: 5
Chapter 16: 6
Chapter 17: THE HUMILIATION OF THE METIS
Chapter 17: 2
Red River was the only sizeable settlement in Central Canada.
Chapter 17: 3
Chapter 17: 4
Chapter 17: 5
Chapter 17: 6
Chapter 17: 7
Wolseley was to talk about it for the rest of his life…
Chapter 17: 8
Chapter 17: 9
Chapter 18 IN THE PACIFIC
Chapter 18: 2
Chapter 18: 3
All this made for a rag-bag cosmopolitan society.
Cakobau was a Christian and knew white men very well.
Chapter 18: 4
Between the two communities lay the islands of The Strait.
By the end of July, the British had landed a force of Royal Marines…
Chapter 18: 5
PART THREE THE IMPERIAL OBSESSION Chapter 19
Chapter 19: 2
Gladstone's most celebrated tour de force…
Mr. Gladstone preferred chopping trees down…
Chapter 19: 3
Chapter 19: 4
Chapter 19: 5
Chapter 20: ASHANTI
Chapter 20: 2
Chapter 20: 3
Chapter 20: 4
Chapter 20: 5
Chapter 20: 6
Chapter 20: 7
Chapter 21: BY THE SWORD
Chapter 21: 2
It was still essentially an army of Empire, different in kind…
Chapter 21: 3
Socially, The Royal Navy had gone up in the world…
Chapter 21: 4
Chapter 21: 5
In 1875 a promising prospect was reported to him.
Chapter 21: 6
Chapter 22: SOUTH OF THE ZAMBEZI
Chapter 22: 2
Chapter 22: 3
Such a mission suited his temperament.
Chapter 22: 4
Frere had early reached the decision…
Chapter 22: 5
Chapter 22: 6
Chapter 22: 7
Chapter 22: 8
Chapter 22: 9
His little assault force, about 400 strong, climbed the precipitous…
Chapter 22: 10
Chapter 23: THE END OF THE TASMANIANS
Chapter 23: 2
Chapter 23: 3
Chapter 23: 4
Chapter 23: 5
Chapter 23: 6
Chapter 23: 7
Presently, Robinson himself, having rounded up every last aboriginal…
Chapter 23: 8
Chapter 23: 9
Chapter 24: THE REBEL PRINCE
Chapter 24: 2
Chapter 24: 3
Chapter 24: 4
Chapter 24: 5
Through the land league, Parnell ruthlessly exploited…
Chapter 24: 6
Chapter 24: 7
Chapter 24: 8
But in the same month as the presentation of the Home Rule Bill…
Chapter 24: 9
Some say that O'Shea sued for divorce…
Chapter 24: 10
Chapter 25 THE MARTYR OF EMPIRE
Chapter 25: 2
Chapter 25: 3
Chapter 25: 4
Garnett Wolseley called Gordon 'God's Friend'…
Chapter 25: 5
Next, Gordon began to hint…
He wrote his journal in his stifling upstairs bedroom.
Chapter 25: 6
Chapter 25: 7
Chapter 25: 8
Chapter 25: 9
Chapter 26: SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA
Kruger looked upon Johannesburg as a more fallible Moses might…
Jan Morris Introduction