Commentaries and notes:

Caesar - The title assumed by the Roman emperors since Gaius Octavius (Octavian; 63 B.C. - 14 A.D.), the great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar.

Diocletian - (Диоклетиан, 245 - 316 A.D.), Gaius Valerius Diocletianus, Roman emperor (284 -305), who restored efficient government to the empire after the near anarchy of the 3^rd century. His reorganisation of fiscal, administrative, and military machinery of the empire laid the foundation for the Byzantine Empire in the East and temporarily shored up the decaying empire in the West. His reign is also noted for the last great persecution of the Christians

God-Caesars - (лат. Caesari divini - божественные Цезари) or, the divine Caesars - the epithet of the Caesars in the age of the Empire.

Augustus - (Август: "high, sacred, great"), the family name of Octavian, from then on inherited by all the succeeding emperors.

Herculeus - (Геркулий), the title assumed by Maximian, who became the trusted officer and friend of Diocletian and later was made the Roman emperor - co-ruler of Diocletian (286 - 305 A.D.).

Constantine - (Константин I, 280s - 337 A.D.), Flavius Valerius Constantinus, the first Roman emperor (312 - 337) to profess Christianity, not only initiated the evolution of the empire into a Christian state but also provided the impulse for a distinctively Christian culture that prepared the way for the growth of Byzantine and Western mediaeval culture. C. Was brought up in the eastern Empire at the court of the emperor Diocletian.

James II - (1633 - 1701), Duke of York (1634), king of Great Britain (1685), the last Stuart monarch in the direct male line. During the reign of Charles II, his brother, was made lord high admiral. On his initiative New Amsterdam was seized from the Dutch in 1664 and renamed New York in his honour. About 1668 he was admitted to the Roman Catholic church.

Glorious Revolution - or Bloodless revolution, (1688). Was engendered by overt Roman Catholicism of James II, which alienated the majority of the population. After two declarations of Indulgence, suspending the penal laws against dissenters and recusants and the birth of a son to James's Roman Catholic queen, several eminent Englishmen wrote inviting William of Orange to come over with an army. After William's landing the Convention Parliament met and declared the abdication of James II, whereby offering the Crown, with an accompanying declaration of Right, to William and Mary jointly, which were accepted. Thereupon, the Convention turned itself into a proper Parliament and the Declaration into the Bill of Rights, which, in particular, abolished the power to suspend laws and required frequent parliaments and free elections.

English Revolution - (1648-1649), was preceded and followed by Civil wars (1642 - 1651). The warfare was engendered by the conflict between Charles I and the Parliament over financing the Bishops' War with Scotland. In 1646 King Charles's army was defeated by Parliamentary forces. But Charles I found support with Scots, and the war resumed. In 1648 the Scottish invasion was defeated, and Charles I was tried and executed in 1649.

Oliver Cromwell - (1599 - 1658), an English soldier and statesman of outstanding gifts and forceful character shaped by a devout Calvinist faith. One of the leading generals on the parliamentary side in the English Civil War (1642 - 1648) against King Charles I Stuart, he helped to bring about the overthrow of the Stuart monarchy. Lord protector of the republican Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1653 to 1658. Raised his country's status once more to that of a leading European power from the decline it had gone through since the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Believed deeply in value of religious toleration.

William III - Willem Hendrick, or William Henry, Prince of Orange¹² (born 1650, ruled: 1689 - 1702), stadholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands as William III (1672 - 1702) and King of Great Britain (1689 - 1702), reigning jointly with Queen Mary II (until her death in 1694). He directed the European opposition to Louis XIV of France¹³ and, in Great Britain, secured the triumph of Protestantism and of Parliament. The grandson of Charles I Stuart.

Mary II - daughter of James II, was married to William III in 1677. James II, a Roman Catholic, had so antagonized his subjects by his despotic and romanizing policies that by 1687 many of them were urging William to intervene. In 1688 a formal invitation was sent to him, signed by a representative selection of James's opponents. The same year William and his army landed in Devon and proceeded almost unopposed to London. James II had abdicated and William and Mary were proclaimed and crowned in 1689.

It was ¹ the principle of legitimacy which ¹ was first ² seriously challenged... (p. 142) - 1) Эмфаза подлежащего (см. Грамматика: раздел "Эмфатические конструкции"), 2) наречие (отвечает на вопрос "when?").

... fundamental... quarrels ¹| about who should rule ³| lead ² only to catastrophe... (p. 143) - 1) подлежащее, 2) сказуемое, 3) дополнение, выраженное придаточным предложением (см. Грамматика: раздел "Эмфатические конструкции").

... There was a monarchy of... dubious legitimacy created by the will of Parliament... (p. 143) - определение к слову "legitimacy", выраженное причастием II с зависимыми словами.

One can sympathize... (p. 143) - аналог неопределенно-личного предложения в русском языке: "Можно посочувствовать...".