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Revision as of 22:47, 14 November 2001 by Sjc (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)It is very difficult to trace the true origins of the country now known as England, since its geopolitical outlines have, until relatively recent times, been subject to a state of ebb and flow, as a consequence of invasion, migration and political flux. Moreover, the notion of 'England' is often used synonymously for, the British Isles comprised of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall, all of which do , to a greater or lesser extent, consider themselves independant nations over the centuries, rather than just denoting the (dominant hegemon) nation state south of Hadrian's Wall and east of the Welsh Marches.
Pre-Roman England may be determined by the following periods:
8-7000 BC Mesolithic Period 2500 BC Neolithic Period 19-1800 BC Beaker Folk invasions 1600 BC Bronze Age 900 BC Wave of Celtic immigration 400 BC Early Iron Age
Little now remains in England by way of evidence of Pre-Roman England, although the Bronze Age Stonehenge c.1500 BC, near to the much earlier stone circle at Avebury, is an extremely large although untypical example.
The Romans, led by Julius Caesar, landed twice in England around 55-54 BC, although this was not an invasion attempt. It was only later, under the emperor Claudius that The Roman Occupation of England came about. In order to protect themselves from the depradations of the Picts, the inhabitants of Scotland at that time, the emperor Hadrian caused a wall to be built from east to west, Hadrian's Wall, to defend England. In typical Roman style, the Romans constructed a highly effective internal infrastructure to cement their military occupation, building long, straight roads the length and breadth of the country, most of which centred on London. For a deeper account of the Roman occupation of Britain, see Roman Britain. See also the Celtic tribes in the British Isles.
The indigenous, predominantly Celtic, population were suppressed with the customary Roman efficiency, although numerous, and often extremely bloody, uprisings occurred throughout the course of their occupation, the most notable being that of the Iceni (and other tribes)led by Boudicca, known also as Boadicea, in 61 AD. The Roman occupation and the extent of their grip declined gradually such that by the 4th Century AD their hold may best be described as tenuous.
In the wake of the Romans, who had largely abandoned the islands in order to concentrate on more pressing difficulties closer to home, what is now England was progressively settled by successive, often complementary, waves of Jutes, Frisians and Saxons, who had been displaced on mainland Europe. Increasingly the erstwhile Celtic population was pushed westwards and northwards. The invasion/settlement of England is known as The Saxon Conquest.
Hengest (Saxon leader, arrived in England in 449, died 488) The Dark Ages Anglo-Saxon Kings
In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577, the Cornish Celtic people were separated from the Welsh by the advancing Saxons.
The Venerable Bede (c672-735) Offa (reign 757-?) Alfred (848-?900)
Starting with the raid 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England. Starting as plundering raids, the Vikings later began to settle in England and trade. There are many traces of vikings in England today, like for instance many words in the English language. One Viking settlement was in York (which they called Jorvik).
It was not until 936, however, that Athelstan was able to evict the Cornish from Exeter, and drew a line at the extent of his kingdom, Wessex, at the river Tamar.
The defeat of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 at the hands of William of Normandy, later styled William I and the subsequent Norman takeover of Saxon England led to a sea-change in the history of the small, isolated, island state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, which was a survey of the entire population and their lands and property.
Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century, writer of "History of the Kings of Britain" stretching from 1100 BC to 689 AD)
The English middle ages were to be characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite.
Henry I, also known as Henry Beauclerc (on account of his education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.
The disastrous and inept reign of Stephen (1135 - 1154) was to see a significant swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as England descended inexorably into civil war and lawlessness. In attempting to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders on those borders, he handed over large tracts of land. Moreover, his conflicts with his cousin, the Empress Matilda, who he had earlier promised recognition as heir, were to be his undoing: she bided her time in France and invaded (with her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester) in the autumn of 1139. Stephen was captured, and his government fell, Matilda was proclaimed queen. She however was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. A period of insurrection and civil war then followed and continued until 1148, when Matilda went back to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, a year after reaching an accommodation with Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) in which the peace between them was guaranteed on the condition that the throne would be his by succession.
The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism.
The Black Death made grim inroads into the population count in the middle of the 14th century. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Scots and the French, with the principal notable battles being the Battle of Crécy and the Battle of Agincourt. On the home front, a sporadic baronial war, the Wars of the Roses, broke out from time to time over contending claims to the throne between the House of Lancaster and the House of York. This culminated in the eventual victory of Henry Tudor, Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where the Yorkist Richard III was slain, and the succession of the Lancastrian House was assured.
Prior to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owen Glendower, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to becomeHenry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.
In 1497, Michael An Gof led Cornish rebels in a march on London. In a battle over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford Bridge, An Gof and his men fought for the independance of Cornwall on 17th June 1497 but were defeated. The battle is significant since it represents the last major rebellion until the Civil War.
King Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and although his religious position was not at all protestant, the resultant schism ultimately and eventually led to England distancing itself almost entirely from Rome. A notable casualty of the schism was Henry's chancellor, Sir Thomas More. There followed a period of considerable religious and political upheaval, which led to the Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and a considerable amount of the wealth of the church.
Henry VIII's daughters, Elizabeth I and Mary I, professed to entirely different positions of faith, and their reigns (and particularly that of Mary) were characteristically periods of religious persecution. Mary, a Catholic, who was married to Philip II of Spain, perhaps the foremost Catholic in Europe barring the pope, took the throne in 1553, and, on her accession, made determined attempts to suppress protestantism.
Elizabeth's subsequent reign saw a substantial increase in English economic prosperity. This was a time of significant English colonial expansion, which frequently brought the English into conflict with the Spanish, who were also busily extending their sphere of influence. Relations with Spain were further adversely affected by Elizabeth's sponsorship of privateering and raids on Spanish ports, and, again, the underlying conflicting question of religion, for Elizabeth had officially restored protestantism by the passing of the Act of Supremacy 1559. The Spanish made an invasion attempt, the ill-fated Spanish Armada which was repulsed by a combination of outstanding English naval activity under the leadership of Sir Francis Drake and bad weather.
An assassination attempt on the protestant King James I on 5th November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, by a group of catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, served as further fuel for antipathy in England to the catholic faith.
The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between the then king Charles I and Parliament. The Parliamentarian army was commanded by Oliver Cromwell, which after much bloodshed and destruction, was ultimately victorious. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles I led to his execution by beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London.
In 1664/65 England was swept by a visitation of the Great Plague, and then, in 1666, London, the timbered capital city of England, was swept by fire, the Great Fire of London, which raged for 5 days, destroying c. 15,000 buildings.
The replacement of the catholic king James II with the Dutch protestant William of Orange, William III, by the English government led to a series of uprisings, the Jacobite Rebellions which were to continue until the mid-18th century.
NB: After the 1707 Act of Union, the histories of Britain and England are largely overlapping entities. Since England was the dominant hegemony, it is assumed for the purposes of this article that the two are largely coterminous.
The union of Scotland with England with the Act of Union 1707, saw Scotland 'united' with England and Wales (Wales had already been assimilated in the Act of Union 1536 by Henry VIII). This was no process of harmonisation, for Scotland had effectively capitulated to English economic pressure after the failure of the Darien Venture. This process was lubricated in the Scottish parliament by the self-interested political manoueverings of the English puppets, John Campbell, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry.
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw considerable social upheaval as a largely agrarian society was transformed by technological advances and increasing mechanisation, which was the the Industrial Revolution. Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centres of production, as the steam-based production factories could undercut the traditional cottage industries, due to economies of scale and the increased output per worker made possible by the new technologies. The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in the rise of infant mortality (to the extent that many Sunday schools for pre working age children (5 or 6) had funeral clubs to pay for each others funeral arrangments), crime, and social deprivation.
The transition to industrialisation was not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom saw their livelihoods threatened by the process. Of these, some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as 'Luddites'. This view of the Luddite history should also be set against alternative views, such as that of E. P. Thompson.
The Act of Union 1800 formally assimilated Ireland within the British political process, and created a new country "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland", uniting England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.
During the early 1800s, the working classes began to find a voice; concentrations of industry led more or less inevitably to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist. The revolutions which spread like wildfire throughout mainland Europe during the 1840s did not occur in England, and Queen Victoria's reign was largely one of consensus, despite huge disparities in living standards between the few rich and the multitudinous poor.