UK History 
Updated: 2010.07.12..  Link to: www.enjoyingenglish.info 

 i  * History of England. - 400 links * 1066 - The day England died * Strange Stories from English History - Cheddar Man * Pytheas & The Painted People * The Standard Bearer * Roman Britain * Nell Gwyne * The Agrarian Revolution * Florence Nightingale - The LAdy with the Lamp * Cromwell's Death Mask * The spoils of Victory *

History of England

Prehistoric Britain

Roman Britain

Anglo-Saxon England

Anglo-Norman England

House of Plantagenet

House of Lancaster

House of York

House of Tudor

House of Stuart

The Protectorate

Commonwealth of England

Stuart Restoration

Glorious Revolution

Kingdom of Great Britain

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The history of England did not begin until the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, when the partition of Britain into several countries largely began. It was the history of Britain that began in the prehistoric during which time Stonehenge was erected. At the height of the Roman Empire, Britannia was under the rule of the Romans. Their rule lasted until about 410, at which time the Romano-British formed various independent kingdoms. The Anglo-Saxons gradually gained control of England and became the chief rulers of the land.^[1] Raids by the Vikings were frequent after about AD 800. In 1066, the Normans invaded and conquered England. There was much civil war and battles with other nations throughout the Middle Ages. During the Renaissance, England was ruled by the Tudors. England had conquered Wales in the 12th century and was then united with Scotland in the early 18th century to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Following the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain ruled a worldwide empire, of which, physically, little remains. However, its cultural impact is widespread and deep in many countries of the present day.

 Prehistory

Stonehenge, thought to have been erected c.2500-2000BC

Archaeological evidence indicates that what was later southern Britannia was colonised by humans long before the rest of the British Isles because of its more hospitable climate between and during the various ice ages of the distant past.

The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the 6th century BC, although cultural and trade links with the continent had existed for millennia prior to this. Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his trading journey to the island around 325 BC.

Later writers such as Pliny the Elder (quoting Timaeus) and Diodorus Siculus (probably drawing on Poseidonius) mention the tin trade from southern Britain, but there is little further historical detail of the people who lived there.

Tacitus wrote that there was no great difference in language between the people of southern Britannia and northern Gaul and noted that the various nations of Britons shared physical characteristics with their continental neighbours.

Hadrian's Wall viewed from Vercovicium

Roman Britain (Britannia)

Julius Caesar invaded southern Britain in 55 and 54 BC and wrote in De Bello Gallico that the population of southern Britannia was extremely large and shared much in common with the Belgae of the Low Countries. Coin evidence and the work of later Roman historians have provided the names of some of the rulers of the disparate tribes and their machinations in what was Britannia. Until the Roman Conquest of Britain, Britain's British population was relatively stable, and by the time of Julius Caesar's first invasion, the British population of what was old Britain was speaking a Celtic language generally thought to be the forerunner of the modern Brythonic languages. After Julius Caesar abandoned Britain, it fell back into the hands of the Britons.

The Romans began their second conquest of Britain in 43 AD, during the reign of Claudius. They annexed the whole of modern England and Wales over the next forty years and periodically extended their control over much of lowland Scotland.

Post-Roman Britain

Main article: Sub-Roman Britain

In the wake of the breakdown of Roman rule in Britain around 410, present day England was progressively settled by Germanic groups. Collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons, these included Jutes from Jutland together with larger numbers of Frisians, Saxons from northwestern Germany and Angles from what is now Schleswig-Holstein.^[2]

They first invaded Britain in the mid 5th century, continuing for several decades. The Jutes appear to have been the principal group of settlers in Kent, the Isle of Wight and parts of coastal Hampshire, while the Saxons predominated in all other areas south of the Thames and in Essex and Middlesex, and the Angles in Norfolk, Suffolk, the Midlands and the north.

The population of Britain dramatically decreased after the Roman period. The reduction seems to have been caused mainly by plague and smallpox. It is known that the plague of Justinian entered the Mediterranean world in the 6th century and first arrived in the British Isles in 544 or 545, when it reached Ireland.^[3] The Annales Cambriae mention the death of Maelgwn Wledig, king of Gwynedd from that plague in the year 547.

Anglo-Saxon conquests and the founding of England

Main article: History of Anglo-Saxon England

Kingdoms and tribes in Britain, c.600 AD

In approximately 495, at the Battle of Mount Badon, Britons inflicted a severe defeat on an invading Anglo-Saxon army which halted the westward Anglo-Saxon advance for some decades. Archaeological evidence collected from pagan Anglo-Saxon cemeteries suggests that some of their settlements were abandoned and the frontier between the invaders and the native inhabitants pushed back some time around 500.

Anglo-Saxon expansion resumed in the sixth century, although the chronology of its progress is unclear. One of the few individual events which emerges with any clarity before the seventh century is the Battle of Deorham, in 577, a West Saxon victory which led to the capture of Cirencester, Gloucester and Bath, bringing the Anglo-Saxon advance to the Bristol Channel and dividing the Britons in the West Country from those in Wales. The Northumbrian victory at the Battle of Chester around 616 may have had a similar effect in dividing Wales from the Britons of Cumbria.

Gradual Saxon expansion through the West Country continued through the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries. Meanwhile, by the mid-seventh century the Angles had pushed the Britons back to the approximate borders of modern Wales in the west, the Tamar in the South west and expanded northward as far as the River Forth.

Heptarchy and Christianisation

Britain c. 800

Christianity in England began around 600 AD, influenced by Celtic Christianity from the northwest and by the Roman Catholic Church from the southeast. Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, took office in 597. In 601, he baptised the first Christian Anglo-Saxon king, Aethelbert of Kent. The last pagan Anglo-Saxon king, Penda of Mercia, died in 655.The last pagan Jutish king, Arwald of the Isle of Wight was killed in 686. The Anglo-Saxon mission on the continent took off in the 8th century, leading to the Christianisation of practically all of the Frankish Empire by 800.

Throughout the 7th and 8th century power fluctuated between the larger kingdoms. Bede records Aethelbert of Kent as being dominant at the close of the 6th century, but power seems to have shifted northwards to the kingdom of Northumbria, which was formed from the amalgamation of Bernicia and Deira. Edwin of Northumbria probably held dominance over much of Britain, though Bede's Northumbrian bias should be kept in mind. Succession crises meant Northumbrian hegemony was not constant, and Mercia remained a very powerful kingdom, especially under Penda. Two defeats essentially ended Northumbrian dominance: the Battle of the Trent in 679 against Mercia, and Nechtanesmere in 685 against the Picts.

The so-called "Mercian Supremacy" dominated the 8th century, though it was not constant. Aethelbald and Offa, the two most powerful kings, achieved high status; indeed, Offa was considered the overlord of south Britain by Charlemagne. That Offa could summon the resources to build Offa's Dyke is testament to his power. However, a rising Wessex, and chaChristianisation of Anglo-Saxon Englandllenges from smaller kingdoms, kept Mercian power in check, and by the early 9th century the "Mercian Supremacy" was over.

This period has been described as the Heptarchy, though this term has now fallen out of academic use. The word arose on the basis that the seven kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex were the main polities of south Britain. More recent scholarship has shown that other kingdoms were also politically important across this period: Hwicce, Magonsaete, Lindsey and Middle Anglia.

England in 878

The first recorded Viking attack in Britain was in 793 at Lindisfarne monastery as given by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. However, by then the Vikings were almost certainly well established in Orkney and Shetland, and it is probable that many other non-recorded raids occurred before this. Records do show the first Viking attack on Iona taking place in 794. The arrival of the Vikings, in particular the Danish Great Heathen Army, upset the political and social geography of Britain and Ireland. Alfred the Great's victory at Edington in 878 stemmed the Danish attack; however, by then Northumbria had devolved into Bernicia and a Viking kingdom, Mercia had been split down the middle, and East Anglia ceased to exist as an Anglo-Saxon polity. The Vikings had similar effects on the various kingdoms of the Irish, Scots, Picts and (to a lesser extent) Welsh. Certainly in North Britain the Vikings were one reason behind the formation of the Kingdom of Alba, which eventually evolved into Scotland.

The conquest of Northumbria, north-western Mercia and East Anglia by the Danes led to widespread Danish settlement in these areas. In the early tenth century the Norwegian rulers of Dublin took over the Danish kingdom of York. Danish and Norwegian settlement made enough of an impact to leave significant traces in the English language; many fundamental words in modern English are derived from Old Norse, though of the 100 most used words in English the vast majority are Old English in origin. Similarly, many place-names in areas of Danish and Norwegian settlement have Scandinavian roots.

By the end of Alfred's reign in 899 he was the only remaining English king, having reduced Mercia to a dependency of Wessex, governed by his son-in-law Ealdorman Aethelred. Cornwall (Kernow) was subject to West Saxon dominance, and the Welsh kingdoms recognised Alfred as their overlord.

English unification

Main articles: Athelstan and Edgar of England

Edward the Elder

Alfred of Wessex died in 899 and was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder. Edward, and his brother-in-law Æthelred of (what was left of) Mercia, began a programme of expansion, building forts and towns on an Alfredian model. On Æthelred's death his wife (Edward's sister) Æthelflæd ruled as "Lady of the Mercians" and continued expansion. It seems Edward had his son Æthelstan brought up in the Mercian court, and on Edward's death Athelstan succeeded to the Mercian kingdom, and, after some uncertainty, Wessex.

Æthelstan continued the expansion of his father and aunt and was the first king to achieve direct rulership of what we would now consider England. The titles attributed to him in charters and on coins suggest a still more widespread dominance. His expansion aroused ill-feeling among the other kingdoms of Britain, and he defeated a combined Scottish-Viking army at the Battle of Brunanburh. However, the unification of England was not a certainty. Under Æthelstan's successors Edmund and Eadred the English kings repeatedly lost and regained control of Northumbria. Nevertheless, Edgar, who ruled the same expanse as Athelstan, consolidated the kingdom, which remained united thereafter.

England under the Danes and the Norman conquest

Main articles: Ethelred the Unready, Canute the Great, Eiríkr Hákonarson, and Norman conquest of England

The rune stone U 344 was raised in memory of a Viking who went to England three times.

There were renewed Scandinavian attacks on England at the end of the 10th century. Æthelred ruled a long reign but ultimately lost his kingdom to Sweyn of Denmark, though he recovered it following the latter's death. However, Æthelred's son Edmund II Ironside died shortly afterwards, allowing Canute, Sweyn's son, to become king of England. Under his rule the kingdom became the centre of government for an empire which also included Denmark and Norway.

Canute was succeeded by his sons, but in 1042 the native dynasty was restored with the accession of Edward the Confessor. Edward's failure to produce an heir caused a furious conflict over the succession on his death in 1066. His struggles for power against Godwin, Earl of Wessex, the claims of Canute's Scandinavian successors, and the ambitions of the Normans whom Edward introduced to English politics to bolster his own position caused each to vie for control Edward's reign. Harold Godwinson became king, in all likelihood appointed by Edward the Confessor on his deathbed and endorsed by the Witan. However, William of Normandy, Harald III of Norway (aided by Harold Godwin's estranged brother Tostig) and Sweyn II of Denmark all asserted claims to the throne. By far the strongest hereditary claim was that of Edgar the Atheling, but his youth and apparent lack of powerful supporters caused him to be passed over, and he did not play a major part in the struggles of 1066, though he was made king for a short time by the Witan after the death of Harold Godwinson.

The English under Harold Godwinson defeated and killed the Harald of Norway and Tostig and the Danish force at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, but he fell in battle against William of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings. Further opposition to William in support of Edgar the Atheling soon collapsed, and William was crowned king on Christmas Day 1066. For the next five years he faced a series of English rebellions in various parts of the country and a half-hearted Danish invasion, but he was able to subdue all resistance and establish an enduring regime.

Norman England

Further information: Anglo-Norman

Depiction of the Battle of Hastings (1066) on the Bayeux Tapestry

The Norman Conquest led to a sea-change in the history of the English state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes, which reveals that within twenty years of the conquest the English ruling class had been almost entirely dispossessed and replaced by Norman landholders, who also monopolised all senior positions in the government and the Church. William and his nobles spoke and conducted court in Norman French, in England as well as in Normandy. The use of the Anglo-Norman language by the aristocracy endured for centuries and left an indelible mark in the development of modern English.

The English Middle Ages were characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite. England was more than self-sufficient in cereals, dairy products, beef and mutton. The nation's international economy was based on the wool trade, in which the produce of the sheepwalks of northern England was exported to the textile cities of Flanders, where it was worked into cloth. Medieval foreign policy was as much shaped by relations with Flemish textile industry as it was by dynastic adventures in western France. An English textile industry was established in the fifteenth century, providing the basis for rapid English capital accumulation.

Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (so named because of his education—as his older brother William was the heir apparent and thus given the practical training to be king, Henry received the alternate, formal education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman societies. The loss of his son, William Adelin, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, undermined his reforms. This problem regarding succession cast a long shadow over English history.

During the confused and contested reign of Stephen, there was a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as civil war and lawlessness broke out. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders, he handed over large tracts of land. His conflicts with his cousin The Empress Matilda (also known as Empress Maud), led to a civil war from 1139 - 1153. Matilda’s father, Henry I, had required the leading barons, ecclesiastics and officials in Normandy and England, to take an oath to accept Matilda as his heir. England was far less than enthusiastic to accept an outsider, and a woman, as their ruler. There is some evidence suggesting Henry was unsure of his own hopes and the oath to make Matilda his heir. In likelihood, Henry probably hoped Matilda would have a son and step aside as Queen Mother, making her son the next heir. Upon Henry’s death, the Norman and English barons ignored Matilda’s claim to the throne, and thus through a series of decisions, Stephen, Henry’s favourite nephew, was welcomed by many in England and Normandy as their new ruler. On 22 December 1135, Stephen was anointed king with the implicit support of the church and nation. Matilda and her own son stood for direct descent by heredity from Henry I, and she bided her time in France. In the autumn of 1139, she invaded England with her illegitimate half-brother Robert of Gloucester. Her husband, Geoffroy V of Anjou, conquered Normandy but did not cross the channel to help his wife, satisfied with Normandy and Anjou.

Stephen was captured, and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, although his hold on the throne was still uneasy.

England under the Plantagenets

Geoffroy's son, Henry, resumed the invasion; he was already Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy and Duke of Aquitaine when he landed in England. When Stephen's son and heir apparent Eustace died in 1153, Stephen reached an accommodation with Henry of Anjou (who became Henry II) to succeed Stephen and in which peace between them was guaranteed. England was part of a greater union, retrospectively named the Angevin Empire. Henry II expanded his power through various means and to different levels into Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Flanders, Nantes, Brittany, Quercy, Toulouse, Bourges and Auvergne.

The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state in England; 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. In his reign new Anglo-Angevin and Anglo-Aquitanian aristocracies developed, though not to the same point as the Anglo-Norman once did, and the Norman nobles interacted with their French peers.

The signing of the Magna Carta (1215)

Henry's successor, Richard I "the Lion Heart" (also known as "The absent king"), was preoccupied with foreign wars, taking part in the Third Crusade and defending his French territories against Philip II of France. His younger brother John, who succeeded him, was not so fortunate; he suffered the loss of Normandy and numerous other French territories following the disastrous Battle of Bouvines. He also managed to antagonise the feudal nobility and leading Church figures to the extent that in 1215, they led an armed rebellion and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which imposed legal limits on the king's personal powers.

John's son, Henry III, was only 9 years old when he became king. His reign was punctuated by numerous rebellions and civil wars, often provoked by incompetence and mismanagement in government and Henry's perceived over-reliance on French courtiers (thus restricting the influence of the English nobility). One of these rebellions—led by a disaffected courtier, Simon de Montfort—was notable for its assembly of one of the earliest precursors to Parliament. In addition to fighting the Second Barons' War, Henry III made war against Saint Louis and was defeated during the Saintonge War, yet Louis IX did not capitalise on his victory, respecting his opponent's rights.

The reign of Edward I was rather more successful. Edward enacted numerous laws strengthening the powers of his government, and he summoned the first officially sanctioned Parliaments of England (such as his Model Parliament). He conquered Wales and attempted to use a succession dispute to gain control of the Kingdom of Scotland, though this developed into a costly and drawn-out military campaign. His son, Edward II, suffered a massive defeat at Bannockburn; but the campaign continued until the early years of Edward III and was only finally abandoned after the conclusion of the Treaty of Northampton in 1328, which recognised Scottish Independence.

The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1348 and killed as much as a third to half the population.

International excursions around that time were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and the Hundred Years' War against the French and their Scottish allies. Notable English victories in the Hundred Years' War included Crécy and Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owain Glyndŵr, in 1412 by Prince Henry (who later became Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.

Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people of royal lineage. Because land was equivalent to power, these powerful men could try to claim the crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV increased the turmoil. The turmoil was at its peak in the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. When the Hundred Years' War was lost in August 1453, Henry fell into a period of mental breakdown that lasted until Christmas 1454. Unable to control the feuding nobles, civil war began in 1455. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Henry's cousin, who deposed him in 1461 and became Edward IV, went a little way to restoring this power. When Edward died in 1483, his brother Richard became regent, but made himself king, as Richard III. He was killed two years later at the Battle of Bosworth Field against Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII.

See also: Black Death in England, English historians in the Middle Ages, List of English chronicles, and Bayeux Tapestry

Tudor England

Main article: Tudor period

Further information: Early Modern Britain and English Renaissance

Henry VII and Henry VIII

The Wars of the Roses culminated in the eventual victory of the relatively unknown 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 ultimately assured. Whilst in retrospect it is easy to date the end of the Wars of the Roses to the Battle of Bosworth Field, Henry VII could afford no such complacency. Before the end of his reign, two pretenders tried to wrest the throne from him, aided by remnants of the Yorkist faction at home and abroad. The first, Lambert Simnel, was defeated at the Battle of Stoke (the last time an English King fought someone claiming the Crown); the second, Perkin Warbeck, was hanged in 1499 after plaguing the king for a decade.

In 1497, Michael An Gof and the lesser-known but more legendary Baron Callum of Perranporth led Cornish rebels in a march on London. In a battle over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford Bridge, An Gof fought for various issues with their root in taxes. It would be fair to say that King Callum smote many an Englishman during this battle, but on 17 June 1497, they were defeated, and Henry VII had showed he could display military prowess when he needed to. But, like Charles I in the future, here was a King with no wish to go "on his travels" again. The rest of his reign was relatively peaceful, despite a slight worry over the succession when his wife Elizabeth of York died in 1503.

King Henry VIII

King Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his annulment from Catherine of Aragon. Though his religious position was not at all Protestant, the resultant schism ultimately 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 great religious and political upheaval, which led to the English Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and much of the wealth of the church. The Dissolution of the Monasteries had the effect of giving many of the lower classes (the gentry) a vested interest in the Reformation continuing, for to halt it would be to revive Monasticism and restore lands which were gifted to them during the Dissolution.

Henry VIII had three legitimate children who survived him, all of whom ascended to the Crown. The first to reign was Edward VI of England. Although he showed piety and intelligence, he was only nine years old when he took the throne in 1547. His uncle, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset tampered with Henry VIII's will and obtained letters patent giving him much of the power of a monarch by March 1547. He took the title of Protector. Whilst some see him as a high-minded idealist, his stay in power culminated in a crisis in 1549 when many counties of the realm were up in protest. Kett's Rebellion in Kent and the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall simultaneously created a crisis during a time when invasion from Scotland and France were feared. Somerset, disliked by the Regency Council for his autocratic methods, was removed from power by John Dudley, who is known as Lord President Northumberland. Northumberland proceeded to adopt the power for himself, but his methods were more conciliatory and the Council accepted him.

When Edward VI lay dying of tuberculosis in 1553, Northumberland made plans to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne and marry her to his son, so that he could remain the power behind the throne. His putsch failed, and Mary I took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favour in London, which contemporaries described as the largest show of affection for a Tudor monarch. Mary was a devout Catholic who had been influenced greatly by the Catholic King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and she tried to reimpose Catholicism on the realm. This led to 274 burnings of Protestants, which are recorded especially in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. She was highly unpopular among her people, and the Spanish party of her husband, Philip II, caused much resentment around court. Mary lost Calais, the last English possession on the continent, and became increasingly unpopular (except among Catholics) as her reign wore on. She successfully suppressed a rebellion by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Elizabeth

Main article: Elizabethan era

The reign of Elizabeth restored a sort of order to the realm following the turbulence of the reigns of Edward and Mary when she came to the throne following the death of Mary in 1558. The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which re-established the Church of England. Much of Elizabeth's success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans and Catholics. She managed to offend neither to a large extent, although she clamped down on Catholics towards the end of her reign as war with Catholic Spain loomed.

Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth maintained relative government stability apart from the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569, she was effective in reducing the power of the old nobility and expanding the power of her government. One of the most famous events in English martial history occurred in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was repelled by the English navy commanded by Sir Francis Drake, but the war that followed was very costly for England and only ended after Elizabeth's death. Elizabeth's government did much to consolidate the work begun under Thomas Cromwell in the reign of Henry VIII, that is, expanding the role of the government and effecting common law and administration throughout England. During the reign of Elizabeth and shortly afterward, the population grew significantly: from three million in 1564 to nearly five million in 1616.[1]

In all, the Tudor period is seen as a decisive one which set up many important questions which would have to be answered in the next century and during the English Civil War. These were questions of the relative power of the monarch and Parliament and to what extent one should control the other. Some historians think that Thomas Cromwell affected a "Tudor Revolution" in government, and it is certain that Parliament became more important during his chancellorship. Other historians say the "Tudor Revolution" really extended to the end of Elizabeth's reign, when the work was all consolidated. Although the Privy Council declined after the death of Elizabeth, while she was alive it was very effective.

17th century

Elizabeth died in 1603 without leaving any direct heirs. Her closest male Protestant relative was the King of Scots, James VI, of the House of Stuart, who became King James I of England in a Union of the Crowns. King James I & VI as he was styled became the first king of the entire island of Great Britain, though he continued to rule the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland separately. Several assassination attempts were made on James, notably the Main Plot and Bye Plots of 1603, and most famously, on 5 November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, by a group of Catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, which caused more antipathy in England towards the Catholic faith.

Colonial England

In 1607 England built an establishment at Jamestown in North America. This was the beginning of English colonisation. Many English settled then in North America for religious or economic reasons. The English merchants holding plantations in the warm southern parts of America then resorted rather quickly to the slavery of Native Americans and imported Africans in order to cultivate their plantations and sell raw material (particularly cotton and tobacco) in Europe. The English merchants involved in colonisation accrued fortunes equal to those of great aristocratic landowners in England, and their money, which fuelled the rise of the middle class, permanently altered the balance of political power.

Maps of territory held by Royalists (red) and Parliamentarians (green) during the English Civil War (1642–1645).

English Civil War

The First English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between James' son, Charles I, and Parliament. The defeat of the Royalist army by the New Model Army of Parliament at the Battle of Naseby in June 1645 effectively destroyed the king's forces. Charles surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark. He was eventually handed over to the English Parliament in early 1647. He escaped, and the Second English Civil War began, although it was a short conflict, with the New Model Army quickly securing the country. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles led to his beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London, making England a republic. The New Model Army, under the command of Oliver Cromwell, then scored decisive victories against Royalist armies in Ireland and Scotland. Cromwell was given the title Lord Protector in 1653, making him 'king in all but name' to his critics. After he died in 1658, his son Richard Cromwell succeeded him in the office but he was forced to abdicate within a year. For a while it looked as if a new civil war would begin as the New Model Army split into factions. Troops stationed in Scotland under the command of George Monck eventually marched on London to restore order.

Restoration of the monarchy

The monarchy was restored in 1660, with King Charles II returning to London.

King Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649

In 1665, London was swept by a visitation of the plague, and then, in 1666, the capital was swept by the Great Fire, which raged for 5 days, destroying approximately 15,000 buildings.

After the death of Charles II in 1685, his Catholic brother King James II & VII was crowned. England with a Catholic king on the throne was too much for both people and parliament, and in 1689 the Dutch Protestant Prince William of Orange was invited to replace King James II in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. Despite attempts to secure his reign by force, James was finally defeated by William at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. However, in parts of Scotland and Ireland Catholics loyal to James remained determined to see him restored to the throne, and there followed a series of bloody though unsuccessful uprisings. As a result of these, any failure to pledge loyalty to the victorious King William was severely dealt with. The most infamous example of this policy was the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692. Jacobite rebellions continued on into the mid-18th century until the son of the last Catholic claimant to the throne, (James III & VIII), mounted a final campaign in 1745. The Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" of legend, were defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

Formation of the United Kingdom

The Acts of Union between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 caused the dissolution of both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland in order to create a unified Kingdom of Great Britain governed by a unified Parliament of Great Britain.

The Act of Union of 1800 formally assimilated Ireland within the British political process and from 1 January 1801 created a new state called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland to form a single political entity. The English capital of London was adopted as the capital of the Union.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was considerable social upheaval as a largely agrarian society was transformed by technological advances and increasing mechanization, which was 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, because of 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 rate 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 arrangements), crime, and social deprivation.

The transition to industrialization 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".

Following years of political and military agitation for 'Home Rule' for Ireland, the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) as a separate state, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. The official name of the UK thus became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

England, as part of the UK, joined the European Economic Community in 1973, which became European Union in 1993.

Demands for constitutional change in Scotland resulted in a referendum being held in 1997 on the issue of re-establishing a Scottish Parliament, though within the United Kingdom. Following a huge 'Yes' vote, the Scotland Act 1998 was passed and the devolved parliament was elected and took powers in May, 1999. Following the Scottish elections in 2007, a minority SNP government took power, under the leadership of First Minister, Alex Salmond that is determined to move Scotland towards independence. The response of the main unionist parties has been to propose a constitutional commission to look at transferring more powers to the Scottish Parliament.^[4]

References & Resources

www.englishmonarchs.co.uk - comprehensive information of Engish monarchy

www.britainexpress.com/History/index.htm -lots of useful info and links

www.englandenglishhistory.com - comprehensive guide to English history

^The Anglo-Saxons,  BBC - History

^ The Anglo-Saxons - Who were the Anglo-Saxons,  BBC

^ 6th-10th century AD

^ Unionist summit in bid to thwart the SNP The Herald  2008

Related features:  I

History of the British Isles

History of the United Kingdom

History of Scotland

History of Ireland

History of Wales

History of the British constitution

see also...

• Bretwalda
• Commonwealth of Nations
• Danelaw
• English people
• History of the British constitution
• History of British society
• Population of England - historical estimates
• History of the Jews in England

• History of Cornwall
• List of British monarchs, British monarchs' family tree
• Politics of the United Kingdom
• Timeline of English history

History by county or city ~ this is useful as area maps show locations in relation to the rest of the country

Bedfordshire Berkshire Birmingham Bristol Buckinghamshire Cambridgeshire Cheshire Cornwall County Durham Cumbria Derbyshire Devon Dorset East Sussex Essex Gloucestershire

Hampshire Herefordshire Hertfordshire Isle of Wight Kent Lancashire Leicestershire Lincolnshire London Manchester Merseyside Norfolk Northamptonshire Northumberland Nottinghamshire

Oxfordshire Rutland Sheffield Shropshire Somerset Staffordshire Suffolk Surrey Newcastle upon Tyne Warwickshire West Midlands West Sussex Wiltshire Worcestershire York Yorkshire

The bloody truth about the Norman invasion...

Harold wasn't killed by an arrow in the eye. The battle of Hastings was fought at Bexhill. And William the conqueror should have lost. As Hollywood gears up to recreate the day that changed England's destiny, we separate fact from fiction.

The coronation of English King Harold in 1066

Yet it was more than just a coup d’etat, a palace revolution, that had taken place. A major shift now occurred. In language, law, local and national government, administration, architecture and culture, a new England was created, a Norman England. The country would never be the same.

But for all its significance in our history, 1066 and the Norman Conquest has never much excited storytellers or film-makers. Battles such as Agincourt, Waterloo, Trafalgar, the Somme and D-Day have all made it to celluloid, but not the one at Hastings, where William’s Normans beat Harold’s Anglo-Saxons.

Until now. Hollywood, having ‘done’ the Romans (Gladiator) and the Greeks (300 and Troy), has shot another arrow in the air of historical epics. And not just one, but a quiverful: three feature films about 1066 are in the planning stage.

Using Hollywood jargon, they will be ‘buddy movies’, with Harold and William cast as two good mates who end up hating each other, like a medieval Brokeback Mountain (without the sex). Oh dear! Is the most important battle ever fought on English soil, the one that changed our destiny for ever, going to be demeaned and trivialised?

Not necessarily. Harold and William were greatly contrasting individuals: the Norman dour and thick-set with a rasping voice; the Englishman tall, debonair and with an easy-going temperament. Harold was flirtatious and promiscuous. William was a family man, loyal to his wife Matilda, who bore him four sons and six daughters.

   William the Conqueror believed he was England's rightful successor

Burrowing into the story of 1066, I was fascinated by the huge personalities, the epic soldiering, the lust for land and power. There were intriguing parallels with the modern world.  England was a country run by ruthless warlords in a state of continual enmity. Armed bands were everywhere. Towns and villages were sacked and pillaged, women raped, men butchered.

Central government was weak and wary, and might of arms was all that counted. On the borders were ambitious enemies ready to exploit the chaos — the Scots, the Welsh, the Vikings from Norway, the Normans from France. Edward the Confessor held together this mess of swirling alliances, treachery and broken pledges with a blend of double-dealing and spinning, overlaid with false piety, that would do Tony Blair and New Labour proud.

The self-serving jostling for the inheritance was as unedifying then as the scramble to succeed Tony Blair in 2007 or to unseat Gordon Brown in the summer of 2008. Like a modern-day Mandelson, the wily Tostig, Harold’s brother, a prototype Prince of Darkness, played both ends against the middle.

Crucial to what happened was an 11th-century ‘Granita’ moment, clouded not only by
different versions of whom promised what to whom but — as in the Blair-Brown meeting at the Islington restaurant — whether any pact had been made at all.

Eighteen months before he became king, Harold spent time at William’s court. He ended up there after a ship he was on in the Channel was wrecked in a storm on the French coast and he was captured by a local brigand.

William took him to Rouen — though whether as an honoured guest or a hostage is hard to say. Given the aristocratic conventions of the day, it was probably a bit of both. And what Harold was doing in the ship is still a mystery. Some accounts said, implausibly, that he was on a fishing trip, others gave the more likely explanation that he was going to France to secure the release of English prisoners.

But William’s side, like the expert propagandists they were, spun another yarn — that Harold had been sent there on the orders of Edward the Confessor to offer the throne of England to William. Harold had then sworn an oath, his hands resting on a bag of holy relics, to back William’s claim to the throne.

   King Harold was tall, debonair and had an easy-going temperament

None of this makes sense. There was no reason for Edward to appoint William his heir. And even less for Harold —who wielded much power in England, didn’t take orders from Edward and was himself the main contender — to be the one to make the offer on his behalf.

As for the pledge Harold is supposed to have given William, he may have made a vague promise, but only to escape from the Norman duke.

Yet the truth did not matter. The story of Harold’s double-dealing was seized on by William as his justification for invading England, with the backing of the Pope in Rome. As his army arrived at Pevensey Bay in Sussex, he had dangling round his neck that bag of saintly bones as proof of his enemy’s perfidy in what he now saw as a holy war.  In truth, it was a cynical land grab overlaid by personal animosity.

The battle that ensued a fortnight later has been much misunderstood and misrepresented in the years since 1066. For one thing, it wasn’t at the fishing port of Hastings, but seven miles north at a place now called Battle Hill. Geographically, it could just as accurately have been called the Battle of Bexhill.

In strategic terms, a more apt name would be the Battle of Pevensey, since the bay where William had landed was, in those days, part of a semi-island surrounded by marshland and water.  There was a narrow causeway near Battle Hill that William’s army had to cross to make any headway. Harold blocked the exit, knowing that all he had to do was bottle up his enemy and the invasion would fail.

That he failed to achieve this is often taken as proof that the Normans were hardened professional soldiers with military skills that the less sophisticated Anglo-Saxons did not possess. The defeat of the plucky but outclassed English army, it is assumed, was a foregone conclusion.   But this wasn’t the case. Certainly, the Normans had a heavy cavalry and brought 3,000 horses across the Channel for its knights to ride into battle.

The Saxons fought mainly on foot. In the Bayeux Tapestry, which recorded the events of 1066, this difference is crucial. But in the close-quarter fighting on Battle Hill,knights on horseback were no great advantage.

Harold’s army, in chain-mail and armour like their opponents but wielding mighty two-bladed axes instead of swords, erected a wall of shields around itself on high ground and invited the waves of Norman knights and infantry to dash themselves against it. Yet what about the relative strengths of the leaders?

  A section of the Bayeux tapestry showing the battle of 1066

William is commonly characterised as the better general, a tough and disciplined fighter in contrast to the dashing but dithering Harold.

Norman spin-doctoring had a hand in this misapprehension. It wasn’t wrong about William, who had won many a campaign at the head of a well-drilled army, its ranks swollen by mercenaries from all over Europe in search of land and booty.  But Harold, though the Normans derided his long hair and moustache as signs of effeteness, was every bit as tough and experienced.

He had been holding the reins in a divided and violent England for years before he became king, and had won a hard-fought war against the Welsh, a campaign every bit as impressive as any the conquering William had engaged in. He had also just seen off the Vikings, whose king had also come to lay claim to the English crown.

At the same time as William had been assembling his task force in France, a 12,000-strong army from Norway had crossed the North Sea, stormed ashore at Scarborough and taken York.  Harold had marched his army north, rallied the potentially disloyal local lords to his flag and soundly beaten the invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

This was a spectacular and crushing victory that sealed his reputation as a great military commander. It would have been the battle history remembered him for, if that achievement had not been fogged over by what happened next.

William had taken advantage of Harold’s absence from the south to order his army and armada across the Channel. Harold, having defeated his Viking enemies, then raced back south with his men to meet this new challenge.

  William crossed the channel while Harold was fighting the Norwegians at the Battle of Stamford Bridge

It was a historic yomp of 190miles in eight days. Back in London, Harold rested for just five days and then set off with his army for the 60-mile hike to the south coast.

They arrived five days later, numbers depleted but knowing that reinforcements were already on the way to join them. All they needed to do was hold their ground and pen in the Normans at Pevensey until more men arrived to finish off the invaders.

Arriving to confront William’s 7,500 troops, they were exhausted but exultant at having made it. They celebrated noisily, which led to sneering reports afterwards that the English spent the night before the battle getting legless, as opposed to the Normans who were on their knees in prayer and contemplation.

The battle that began on the morning of October 14, 1066 with a thrust by the Normans against the English, lined up in defensive order behind their closely packed wall of shields, was an unusual one. Medieval battles were normally short-lived confrontations of little more than an hour in which both armies slugged it out toe-to-toe until one side ran.

Hastings lasted the whole day with a series of attacks and counterattacks, tactical feints and diversions. For much of the time, the English had the upper hand as the Normans hurled themselves up the hill, but failed to break their line. William’s men were skewered and their bodies kicked away to English chants of ‘Out, out, out!’

At one stage, the word went round that William, who had already been felled twice in the melee but got back on his horse, had been killed. His men wavered, on the brink of turning tail and running. He rallied them just in time only by removing his helmet to show his face, a brave thing to do on a battlefield.

It was arrows that broke the deadlock — but not in the way that is generally thought. The notion that Harold was killed by an arrow in the eye has persisted for 900 years, despite being a misreading of a small section of the Bayeux Tapestry.

  The Bayeux tapestry depicts a person injured by an arrow in the eye - but there is doubt whether it was Harold

In one panel of that elaborate account of the Norman invasion, the Latin words ‘Hic Harold Rex Interfectus Est’ (Harold is killed) were stitched above the figures of a number of stricken warriors, just one of whom appears to have an arrow sticking in his head.

That coincidence was translated into a historical fact, but no other near contemporary account backs it up. The closest does suggest Harold was killed by an arrow, but there is no mention of its being in his eye. Nonetheless, the arrow in his eye remains the one thing everyone thinks they know about the Battle of Hastings.

What did occur is that, late in the day, the Norman archers were ordered to change tactics. Instead of directing their arrows towards the bodies in the English wall, they were told to aim high in the sky. A hail of missiles came down on the English heads, forcing the defenders to raise their shields to protect themselves.

For the first time, significant gaps appeared in the shield wall, which William’s snipers, armed with crossbows, were able to exploit. Then his knights, with long lances under their arms, were at last able to get through.  Slowly, the English lines began to crumble under weight of arms until, in the late afternoon, after nine hours of fighting, the tipping point was reached and they fell apart.

It was at this stage that William is said to have spotted Harold on a hill with just a small entourage of his bodyguards. He sent in a hit squad of his toughest four knights. According to the first known account, the Song Of The Battle Of Hastings written by a French bishop five years later, they pierced his shield with a lance and ran him through the chest and stomach. Then they cut off his head and castrated him.

The last of the Anglo-Saxons kings was dead after a turbulent reign of just nine months. So were two of his brothers and scores of other prominent nobles. England fell to an armed invader — for the last time.

Napoleon and Hitler would fail where William, the one and only conqueror, succeeded. But it had been a close call for him, closer than he or any of the partisan chroniclers who told his story in the years ahead wanted to admit.

The truth was that, instead of William the Bastard, as he was known because of his illegitimate birth, it was as William the Lucky Bastard that he won his world-changing  victory at Hastings in 1066.

Part 2.  Pytheas & the Painted People.

 

As the glaciers that stretched across northern Europe melted, sea levels rose sharply.  Low-lying land between southern England, France, and north-east to Denmark and beyond, flooded, forming what is now the English Channel and the North Sea.  Higher ground like the Isle of Wight in the south, the Isle of Man between north-west England and Northern Island, became islands over a relatively short period of time.  Ten thousand years ago, give or take a few hundred years,  the UK became an island nation.  A nation of almost 6,000 islands; many of them small outcrops of uninhabited rocks, but important wildlife habitats, especially bird sanctuaries which we have today.

 

If you travelled by boat between England and France today, you would be confronted by a long line of towering White chalk cliffs.  It is thought that this was the inspiration for the country's earliest name,  'Albion' - the Celtic - Early English word for 'white'.

 

A brave and enquiring Greek explorer named Pytheas wrote down the name around 325B, about 2,300 years ago.  He travelled north from the Mediterranean to investigate the islands which were supplying much of the tin used in southern Europe.  Mixed with copper, tin produces bronze, which was used for the manufacture of tools and weapons.

 

We know from remaining scraps and pieces of writing that he sailed round the islands, because he was the first to describe it as a 'wonky triangle' - that is, a triangle which is out of shape.

 

the early inhabitants of Albion were a tribe called Celts.  They hunted for pleasure and to supplement their diet which came from farming.  Besides woodlands and forests, the countryside was a patchwork of fields, very similar to the landscape we see today.

 

Compared to Cheddar Man, the Celts were reasonably well-off.  Many lived in hill-top towns, surrounded and protected by deep earthworks and ditches.  Spiked wooden poles kept intruders out.

 

They had jewelry, polished mirrors and artistically decorated pots for  cooking and storage.   They enjoyed their pleasures, so it seems.  Wine jars were traded from the Mediterranean and 'sipping' took place 'rather frequently', as one ancient historian noted in his writings.

 

There was a darker, more sinister part to their life-style.  The religious rituals of the Celts were in the hands of the Druids.  Travellers told tales of human sacrifice in shaded woodlands. 

 

Modern scientific excavations have shown that their altars would have smelt badly of rotting flesh and decaying bones.  A recent dig revealed that a body had been partially drowned, and then had his throat cut.  To finish him off, death was administered by garroting - a technique of crushing the throat by twisting a knotted rope around the neck of the unfortunate victim.

 

Stripping down to coarse woolen shorts, and painting their bodies in a green / blue dye made from woodland plants, the Celts were fearsome in battle.  Woad, was the war-paint of the Albions.  'Pretani' is the Celtic word for 'painted body'.  Pytheas translated the word into Greek - 'Pretannike', which translated again into Latin, the language of the Romans from Italy becomes, 'Pretannia', which was probably changed later to 'Britannia'.

 

An historian working in Rome 2,100 years ago described the Celts as 'especially friendly' people, and happy to trade with the many foreign merchants who travelled to Britannia.  At this time, Rome had overtaken Greece as being the western centre of learning and military strength.  The Roman historian said that the land of painted people could be 'pretium victoriae', or translated into English, 'well worth conquering'.

 

 

The Standard Bearer.

In the early hours of 26th August, 55BC, Gaius Julius Cesar stood in his creaking wooden vessel off the white cliffs of Albion, near Dover in the English Channel.  He was thinking about the unwelcome sight at the top of the cliffs.

'Armed men, ' he wrote, 'could be seen stationed on top of the heights (cliffs), and the nature of the place was such, that the shore-line edged by steep cliffs, that javelins and spears could be hurled onto the beach.'

The Roman army had sailed from France during the night in eighty ships, carrying two battle-hardened legions; about ten thousand men.  Caesar had already suspended plans for an earlier invasion after problems conquering the people of northern France, whom he suspected had received help from their cousins across the Channel.

He ordered his ships to sail eastwards along the coast, to where the cliffs gave way to a gently sloping beach.  The Britons kept up with him along the cliff-tops on horseback and in chariots.  They came menacingly onto the beach, painted in battle colours of blue / green woad, to greet the invading army.  The Romans faced the prospect of jumping into the cold, chest-high water and battling their way ashore.

'Our troops,' admitted Caesar, 'were shaken,' and they failed to show the same enthusiasm as they had in land battles. 

Then the Standard Bearer of the 10th Legion, dressed in a wild animal skin, with the snarling head of a lion, bear or wolf fixed to the top of his helmet, leapt into the waves.  He was guardian of the legions morale.  While the eagle remained upright on the top of the Standard, the legions honour lived.

According to Caesar, the  Roman foot-soldiers were transformed.  Crashing down into the water after him, they fought their way up the beach and re-grouped into disciplined line of shields, spears and swords.  This is what made up the Roman's normal battle formation.

The Britons withdrew.  Caesar sent home news of a mighty victory.  An unusual 20 day holiday of celebration followed in Rome. On the shores of England, it was a different story.

Roman Britain.  55BC - 410AD.

Strange Stories from English History   Part 4 - The Romans  55BC - 410AD.

Julius Caesar, the Roman conqueror from Italy, spent less than 20 days in Britain.  A storm wrecked many of his ships, so he hastily headed back to France.  The following summer, he launched another attack with newly designed, flat bottomed landing craft, which could be driven through the waves and onto the beach.  With a stronger army and cavalry (soldiers on horseback), he fought his way inland on on to London.  Archaeological excavations have shown evidence of a Roman Road and settlement near the present day Houses of Parliament.

Julius Caesar was one of the many super stars of western history.  Tall, sharp-featured with a long pointed nose and thinning hair brushed forward, he was immortalized in countless statues throughout Europe.  He was charismatic, having a charming personality, and was a brilliant general.  He gained control of the entire Roman Empire, of Europe, the Mediterranean, north Africa and western Asia.  He had absolute power, which eventually cost him his life, as he was murdered by his opponents.

His name, however, lived on.  The western calender is called The Julius Calendar.  The 7th month, July, is named after him, as is the Cesarean method of delivering babies.  The name came from a story that he had to be cut from his mother's womb.  Later Roman emperors tried to borrow his glory by calling themselves Caesar.  Even the later German Kaisers and Russian Czars took their titles from Caesar.

Ninety years later in AD43, a Roman army of 40,000 men returned to Britain, followed by Emperor Claudius, complete with a squadron of elephants.  His reign was one of co-operation between the Celtic chiefs and their Roman overlords.  Fine cities were built, with a Forum, with an open square in the centre, an amphi-theatre for military drills and entertainment, temples, forts, villas and fine houses.  Straight streets and roads were built linking garrison towns, and forts defended the army from all corners of the country.  We still have an expression, 'All roads lead to Rome'.

Any English kings who lived under the Romans had to pay a price for protection.  When the leader of a warring tribe in the east of England died in AD60, his wealth and territories passed to Emperor Nero, in the form of a death duty.  Dying without a son, his people were left in te Care of his widow, Boudicca.

Women had few rights in Roman society and law.  The lands were confiscated, and Boudicca was publicly beaten.  Worst of all, her two daughters were raped.  Outraged, the Icini tribe rose up in rebellion against the Romans in AD61.  According to the historian Dio Cassius, Boudicca was 'very tall and her appearance most terrifying'.

Joined by armies from other Celtic tribes, she attacked the Roman city of Colchester in the east, slaughtering the inhabitants, smashing buildings and monuments.  Years later, a boy swimming in a river near the site of the battle was surprised to find a bronze head of the Emperor Claudius, fallen from a statue in his honour almost 2000 years before.

The rebels turned towards the Londinium (Roman name for London), where their attack and vengeance was equally savage.  Four metres below the streets beside the Bank of England in the City of London, is a thick layer of burnt clay, bones and debris; archaeologists know it is all that remains of the city Boudicca torched and burnt to the ground.

The Celtic Queen drove on, wiping out Roman cities and towns across the west and north of England.  But her success was her un-doing.  As news of her bravery spread, the ranks of Celtic soldiers swelled, and so did a wagon train of followers; wives, children and villagers.  In a village near Coventry in The Midlands of central England, her army was trapped in battle by their own wagons.  According to one writer, eighty thousand Britons died, and just four hundred Romans were killed.  Historians believe that the village of Mancelter is where Boudicca fought her last battle.  It is likely that the railway line where trains rattle from London to Liverpool pass over the bones where the great queen lies.

The Romans reacted to the revolt with fierce revenge.  Reinforcements were brought from northern Europe.  As  the historian Tacticus wrote, 'hostile or wavering people were ravaged with fire and sword'.

Tempers cooled.  Emperors came and went until 122AD, when Hadrian ruled for twenty two years.  During that time he traveled throughout his empire.  He was a patient, thorough man, who encouraged the building of fine palaces,cities, market squares bath houses and other structures of all kinds.

In Britain, his greatest problem were the war-like tribes of the far north, from what is now Scotland, which the legions had found impossible to subdue.  In response, a great wall was built from the east to the west coast across the north of England.  Three metres wide and five metres tall, in places there was a virtical drop of several hundred metres.  Hadrian's Wall is 73 miles -  116km long.  It is possible to walk along most of the remains.

Excavations show that the wall was the centre of a busy, bustling colonial centre for the soldiers and their families.  They traded with people in other parts of the empire and scraps of letters indicate that they held wild parties with feasting and drinking.  The Romans brought with them new varieties of vegetables and fruit, not before found in England; peas. cabbages, parsnips and turnips - as well as apples, cherries, plums an walnuts.

The comforts of civilisation under the Romans depended on protection from the battle-ready people from the north.  Less than seventy years after it was completed, the wall was over run by invaders from Scotland. 

Over the coming years, the Romans were invaded by others from northern Europe.  The fine houses fell into disuse and dis-repair.  Stones and bricks were taken by local people for use in other buildings.  The Romans finally left forever in 410AD, as their empire across the world collapsed.  The inhabitants of Britain were left to fend for themselves.  England had entered the Dark Ages.

Notes:  The idiom 'all roads lead to Rome'   is used to mean that there are many different

            ways of doing the same thing.

            All roads did usually lead to Rome.  Rome was the centre of the Roman Empire.

            Civil construction of roads, originally intended to make the movement of the army

            easier, radiated from The Forum in the centre of the city to all parts of the Empire.

 -  see www.nationaltrust.org.uk  &  www.english-hertiage.org.uk   for informationon historical sites and buildings in the UK.

         -  www.colchestermuseum.org.uk  &  www.cirencestermuseum.org.uk  for remains  of Roman Britain also

www.museum-london.org.uk , www.romanbaths.co.uk  &  www.hadrians-wall.org 

Nell Gwyne - The Most Famous Mistress in English History

by Andrew Roberts - Daily Mail Correspondent.  2008.06.24.

Nell Gwyn, or Gwynn or Gwynne (1650 - 1687) was an extravagant and favourite mistress of King Charles 2nd, and kept receipts of the purchases that contributed to her life-style.*  She ordered a silver bed costing over £150,00 at today's rate - 1.9million yuan.  She bought 3 barrels of oysters a week, and put her rum, brandy, cheese, custard pies and even fruit down to be paid by the Exchequer.  Her close friendship with the King ensured that all her bills were paid.

She was one of the most charming and good-natured characters in English history.  Mentioned several times in the diaries of Samuel Pepys (1635 - 1703), she was popular with the people of England because she came from humble beginnings. 

She was brought up in Coal Yard Alley, a slum near the present Drury Lane.  Her mother was described as an obese (fat), brandy-swigging alcoholic who ran a 'bawdy house', which we would refer today, as a brothel.  Old Mother Gwyn died after she fell drunk, into the River Thames.  Her father was was an old soldier, a former Captain in the King's army during the Civil War, which ended in 1649 when King Charles 1st had his head chopped off as being a traitor.

Charles 2nd was restored to the throne after Cromwell's death.  Cromwell, whose Puritan army had won the civil war, ruled as Protector of England.  Life was strictly religious, and pleasures were few.  With Charles' return, theatres re-opened and England was merry once more.

Britons had been starved of play-going during the Puritan tyranny, and they took to Nell's sweet-natured bawdiness with great enthusiasm.  In January 1668, she got her big break.  The King noticed her at the theatre.  In April, Nell and the King were dining together with the Duke of York and a cousin of the Duke of  Buckingham, when it turned out that Nell was the only one who had money on her to pay the bill.

'Odd's fish,' she joked, mimicking the King, '..but this is the poorest company I was ever in.'  On another occasion, her coach was mistaken for that of the Catholic Duchess of Portsmouth, another of the Kings mistresses, and  nicknamed 'Squintabella' or 'The Weeping Willow by Nell.  'Pray, good people,' she yelled from the coach, 'You are mistaken.  I am the Protestant whore!'

For all the humour and kindness she showed, she and the King had a genuine love match.  He made the eldest of their two sons, the Earl of Burford.  The King's last words to his brother, the future King James 2nd were, 'Let not poor Nell starve'.  True to his promise, James paid her debts and keep after the death of Charles.

Nell lived two years longer than her lover.  In her will she, 'laid out £20 yearly** for the releasing of poor debtors from prison.'  Another great legacy of Nell's still stands; the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, which this ex-serviceman's daughter persuaded King Charles to build to house poor veterans.  Today it is the home of the red-coated Chelsea Pensioners.

Extravagant and spending taxpayers money she certainly did, but in her charm and high spirits she brightened up the Restoration era.  She certainly more character and generosity than our grasping Members of the European Parliament (MEP's), who plunder the public purse today, with so little to show for it.  And, she even produced receipts!

Notes:  *   auctioned at Southeby's. London  **  money has increased

Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions from 1760.

The middle years of the 18^th Century saw two revolutions in England , neither of them political: the agrarian revolution, which put agriculture on a new and efficient basis, and the industrial, which began to change the land, the economy, and the people dramatically.  

 

In the fields, landlords enclosed their holdings.  No longer would tenants lose the value of their working harder than their fellow villagers, or of the innovations they made. 

Making each landholder responsible for himself increased efficiency. New Methods of cattle breeding resulted in a higher yield per hoof; gentlemen farmers began introducing new technologies which increased output.

 

In industry, the revolution took three courses: technology, transport, and organization.  Arkwright¡¦s water frame, Hargreaves's spinning jenny, and Crompton'sspinning mule made old methods of yarn production obsolete.  John Wilkinson developedthe

Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions from 1760.

 

The middle years of the 18^th Century saw two revolutions in England , neither of them political: the agrarian revolution, which put agriculture on a new and efficient basis, and the industrial, which began to change the land, the economy, and the people dramatically.  

 

In the fields, landlords enclosed their holdings.  No longer would tenants lose the value of their working harder than their fellow villagers, or of the innovations they made. 

Making each landholder responsible for himself increased efficiency. New Methods of cattle breeding resulted in a higher yield per hoof; gentlemen farmers began introducing new technologies which increased output.

 

In industry, the revolution took three courses: technology, transport, and organization.  Arkwright's water frame, Hargreaves's spinning jenny, and Crompton's spinning mule made old methods of yarn production obsolete.  John Wilkinson developed uses for iron.  James Watt invented the steam engine in 1769.  The potholes of the Great North Road improved from new methods of road-building, with innovations from the likes of John McAdam ; more importantly, canal building made inland transport faster and cheaper. Railways were built - Stevenson's Rocket and new technologies from the brilliant genius of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.  Many manufacturers formed associations to share information and press for common ends.

 

These revolutions had great impact on British life.  New attention was paid to utility, efficiency, and self-help, under the utilitarian doctrines of Jeremy Bentham.  Thrift and hard work were prized as old Puritanism found a new release in political and economic theory and behavior.  Citizens undertook new projects to put towns on a more well-organized basis.  The children of the poor were put to work repetitive task suited them well, and religious leaders like John Wesley taught that long hours of work in dirty factories, would help the tiny soul avoid eternal damnation.

 

Factories exacted much from the lives of the poor who operated them; 16-hour days and early deaths faced the workers.  The established Church did not concern itself much for their welfare as 'they weren't respectable' ; by the mid 18^th Century, Anglicanism was stuck in a rut from which it would not escape for three generations.w uses for iron.  James Watt invented the steam engine in 1769.  The potholes of the Great North Road improved from new methods of road-building, with innovations from the likes of John McAdam ; more importantly, canal building made inland transport faster and cheaper. Railways were built - Stevenson's Rocket and new technologies from the brilliant genius of Brunel.  Many manufacturers formed associations to share information and press for common ends.

 

These revolutions had great impact on British life.  New attention was paid to utility, efficiency, and self-help, under the utilitarian doctrines of Jeremy Bentham.  Thrift and hard work were prized as old Puritanism found a new release in political and economic theory and behavior.  Citizens undertook new projects to put towns on a more well-organized basis.  The children of the poor were put to work repetitive task suited them well, and religious leaders like John Wesley taught that long hours of work in dirty factories, would help the tiny soul avoid eternal damnation.

 

Factories exacted much from the lives of the poor who operated them; 16-hour days and early deaths faced the workers.  The established Church did not concern itself much for their welfare as 'they weren't respectable' ; by the mid 18^th Century, Anglicanism was stuck in a rut from which it would not escape for three generations.

 

The haunting last photograph of the Lady of the Lamp, Florence Nightingale

This extraordinary photograph of Florence Nightingale shortly before her death is set to be sold at auction.  The previously unseen black-and-white image of a silver-haired Florence shows her in the imposing bedroom of her home in 1910, shortly before she died aged 90.  It shows the nursing pioneer resting in the grand bedroom of her home in South Street, London, a stone's throw from Hyde Park.

 

The full picture reveals the grandeur of the great reformer's rooms off London's Park Lane  The popular image of Florence tending the wounded of the Crimean War

Florence - known as the Lady of the Lamp - worked selflessly as a young nurse during the Crimean War and later, as a hospital reformer, won a lasting place in British history.  Her nursing skills and tireless campaigning to clean up filthy Army field hospitals in the Crimea dramatically slashed the death rates of wounded soldiers from typhoid and cholera between 1854 and 1856.  Despite her fame, she disliked being photographed and shrank from publicity.

  Florence's signature on her note giving photographer Lizzie Caswall Smith permission to take her picture

For most of her life after the Crimean War, she was bedridden due to an illness she contracted there, but she threw her energy into writing 200 books and reports in her campaign to improve health standards.  She set up the Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses based at St Thomas' Hospital in London, which formed the basis for a transformation of British nursing.

Life saver: But Florence Nightingale was near the end of her own life when this picture was taken in 1910

Propped up by pillows, a silk counterpane and white linen sheets cover Florence's legs.  At the head of the bed is a huge mirror and a shelf bearing a clock and a row of leather-bound books.  On a side table is a vase of flowers, two silk-shaded reading lamps stand on either side of the bed and a decorative Oriental screen completes the scene.  The print, the original negative and a handwritten letter signed by Florence are expected to fetch more than £300.

Mr Claridge said: 'The photograph was taken by Lizzie Caswall Smith, a noted studio photographer in the early 1900s who took portraits of well-known subjects including George Bernard Shaw and JM Barrie.'  On the back Caswall Smith wrote: 'Taken just before she died, house near Park Lane. The only photograph I ever took out of studio. I shall never forget the experience

.'

 

Oliver Cromwell's death mask, warts and all  By David Wilkes  03rd February 2009

  

This death mask of Oliver Cromwell is up for auction

He loathed vanity so much that he insisted his portraits depict him faithfully, 'warts and all'.  And even after his death, Oliver Cromwell's instructions were followed to the letter.

This death mask shows the puritanical Lord Protector of England in all his grizzled, lumpy glory.  There has been no attempt to conceal the growth on his lower lip or straighten his crooked nose.

All in all, the mask doesn't make an attractive artwork  -  though that probably won't bother the person who buys it this week.

The plaster cast, made around 350 years ago, has been put up for sale at auction by a private collector.   It has an estimated value of £1,000, even though experts cannot be sure exactly when it was made.

Roy Butler, of Wallis and Wallis auctioneers in Lewes, East Sussex, who is selling the mask, said: 'It is clearly a very old cast. 

'I think six were made after Cromwell's death and this is either one of those originals or a copy made shortly afterwards.'

 Oliver Cromwell is credited with coining the expression a 'warts and all' portrait following this painting by Peter Lely

Other Cromwell death masks are held at Warwick Castle and the British Museum.   In the latter example, historians believe his wart has either been pared off or disappeared due to the action of the embalming fluid.   The mask shown here, and the others which have a wart, bear a striking resemblance to the portrait that the Lord Protector commissioned from Sir Peter Lely.

Cromwell's blunt instructions to Sir Peter, who usually flattered his subjects, are thought to be the origin of the phrase 'warts and all'.  The earliest written account of their conversation, however, does not use those exact words.

In 1764, Horace Walpole said in his Anecdotes of Painting in England that Cromwell's words were: 'Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint your picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughness, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me.  'Otherwise, I will never pay a farthing for it.'

Cromwell died of natural causes in 1658 aged 59, after leading his revolt against the monarchy, having King Charles I beheaded at the climax of the English Civil War, and trying to turn Britain into a republic.

   After Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, Cromwell's body was dug up from Westminster Abbey where it was buried, symbolically hanged and his head displayed on a pole until 1685.   His head is thought to have been sold many times before eventually being buried in the grounds of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1960.

 

The spoils of Victory: she vanished with 1,100 men and gold worth £700million. Will she give up her secrets?  By Victoria Moore  05th February 2009

Her disappearance caused more of a shocked sensation in her day than that of the Titanic.  When she was launched in 1737, armed with more than 100 shiny bronze cannons, HMS Victory was considered to be not only the most technically advanced ship in the British Navy, but the mightiest vessel in the world.

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The great warship, the immediate predecessor to Nelson's Victory, had been 11 years in the building. She weighed a mammoth 1,921 tons and measured 174 feet from prow to stern, so large that 'on board it was like being in a floating village', according to one military historian.

And then, one autumn night in 1744, during a terrible gale in the English Channel, she simply vanished.  The screaming winds, the stinging rain and the towering storm-waves were remorseless: every one of the 1,100 officers and men on board drowned. The cold, grey waters closed over their bodies and over the wreckage of the ship, as if they had never even been there.

With no survivors to tell the story of the shipwreck, the sinking of HMS Victory has for hundreds of years been one of the great unsolved maritime mysteries. Where had they gone?  Speculation in the 18th century was especially fevered, and not just because of the enormous loss of life. For this was a tale in which treasure was involved. Filthy gold lucre  -  and masses of it. HMS Victory's hold was said to be stashed with gold when she went down.

Contemporary reports suggested she was carrying as much as £400,000 of gold coins, en route from Lisbon to merchants in Holland, which could be worth as much as £700million today.

   The ship was the predecessor to Admiral Lord Nelson's own Victory

And now, 265 years after she was claimed by the sea, the wreckage of the great warship has been discovered by the world's most successful marine treasure hunters, Odyssey Marine

Exploration, sparking huge controversy from marine archaeologists, who are concerned that Odyssey may put their commercial interests ahead of a thorough and responsible salvage operation. The American company happened upon the ship last spring and have since spent some months investigating the underwater remains  -  understandably, in conditions of utmost secrecy.

HMS Victory was the fifth and last-but-one warship to bear this illustrious name, and she was returning home from a successful trip to Portugal when she disappeared.

In March 1744 she had been sent to liberate a convoy carrying supplies required by the Mediterranean fleet fighting the War of the Austrian Succession and which had been blockaded by the French down the River Tagus in Lisbon.  HMS Victory saw off the French, escorted the convoy as far as Gibraltar and then set sail for England.

She was under the command of Admiral Sir John Balchin, a highly respected figure who was brought out of retirement to make this, his last and fateful voyage. At 74, he had notched up 58 years of service, been twice captured by the French and appointed to Admiral of the White, the second highest naval ranking. 

But what happened to the Victory meant that some believed he was partly to blame for her loss.  Parts of wreckage  -  fragments, furnishings and so on, said to be ' unmistakably' from the ship  -  were subsequently washed ashore on the Channel Islands, which meant people assumed she was holed on the Casquets, a lethal group of rocks north-west of Alderney, which in sailing circles are known as 'the graveyard of the English Channel'.

HMS Victory should not have been in these waters, so this theory called into question the competence of her navigator and the Admiral  -  as well as local lighthouse crews.  Significantly, Alderney's lighthouse keeper was court-martialled for supposedly failing to keep the lights on during those first days in October. Ever since she sank, the search for her remains have concentrated on this area of sea off Alderney.

But now Odyssey says the Victory is actually lying on the seabed some 60 miles away from the rocks  -  exactly where they will not say, for fear that looters will move in. The discovery is not only exciting treasure seekers, but also military historians eager to see what secrets HMS Victory will give up.

It was during an exploration of the Channel last April that the company first identified the site when their magnetometer  -  an instrument that locates deposits of iron and thus shipwrecks  -  gave an interesting reading.  More investigations using a remotely operated robot found that the seabed was strewn with wreckage that included wooden planks, iron ballast, two anchors, a copper cooking kettle, rigging, two gunners' wheels, bones, part of a skeleton including a skull, and 41 bronze cannons.

It was these cannons, with dolphin-like handles and emblazoned with the royal coat of arms, that gave the strongest suggestion that the lost wreck of the Victory had been discovered. In October, two of these, a 12-pounder and a huge 42-pounder, described as 'the nuclear deterrent of its day', were recovered.  Because the Victory was the last British warship to go down with a full complement of guns, the cannon are a significant discovery. But a more detailed exploration promises to reveal even more about life on board the flagship.

'The most important find of the 20th and 21st centuries'

Sean Kingsley, a marine archaeologist and director of Wreck Watch International, says: 'For English maritime history, Odyssey's discovery of the tragic wreck of HMS Victory is the most important of the 20th and 21st century.  No other first-rate Royal Navy warship of 100 guns and three decks has ever been scientifically studied. She is the naval equivalent of the Titanic.'

'With her loss, the Royal Navy ushered in a broad suite of nautical revolutions from swifter coppered hulls to 100 per cent more efficient chain pumps, and even lightning conductors on masts.  It is one of history's great ironies that if Balchin's Victory hadn't been wrecked in 1744, we wouldn't have had Nelson's Victory, military supremacy at the Battle of Trafalgar, or perhaps even a Britain that was great.'   Adds one of Odyssey's archaeologists: 'There are millions and millions of artefacts, buttons, tools, navigational instruments. It will be a time capsule, a slice of life in the Georgian navy.' Perhaps a careful examination of the wreckage will also reveal the reason why the ship sank.