Summary An illustrated history of Britain.docx

**[Summary An illustrated history of Britain ]** ============================================================ History dates timeline: - 43 CE: Roman Invasion - 430 CE: Anglo-Saxon Invasion - 865 CE: First Viking Invasions - 1066 CE: Battle of Hastings - 1215 CE: Magna Carta - 1337 CE: Start Hundred Years' war - 1348 CE: Black Death - 1455 CE: War of the Roses - 1492 CE: "Discovery" of the Americas - 1534 CE: Establishment Church of England - 1620 CE: Puritan colonization of America - 1760 CE: Start Industrial Revolution - 1776 CE: American Declaration of Independence - 1789 CE: French Revolution - 1815 CE: Battle of Waterloo - 1837 CE: Start reign Queen Victoria - 1861 CE: Start American Civil War - 1914 CE: Start WWI - 1929 CE: Wall Street crash (a.k.a. Black Tuesday) - 1940 CE: Start WWII - 1945 CE: First detonation nuclear device - 1947 CE: Independence of India and Pakistan - 1962 CE: Cuban Missile Crisis - 1979 CE: Election Thatcher as PM - 2013 CE: Completion Freedom Tower **Chapter 1:** **[The Island ]** Britain has a milder climate than much of the European mainland because it lies in the way of the Gulf Stream, which brings warm water and winds from the Gulf of Mexico. [Within Britain there are differences of climate between north and south, east and west:] - The north is in average 5 °C cooler than the south. - Annual rainfall in the east is on average about 600 mm, while in many parts of the west it is more than double that. The countryside is varied also. - The north and west are mountainous or hilly \> the south and east is fairly flat, or low-lying. Britain' s history has been closely connected with the sea because it is an island. Until the modern times it was as east to travel across water as it was across land, where roads were frequently unusable. - At moments of great danger Britain has been saved from danger by its surroundings seas. *Britain' s history and its strong national sense have been shaped by the sea.* Stonehenge = the most powerful monument of Britain's prehistory. Its purpose is still not properly understood. Those who built Stonehenge knew how to cut and move very large pieces of stone, and place horizontal stone beams across the upright pillars. They also had the authority to control large numbers of workers, and to fetch some of the stone from distant parts of Wales. **[Britain's prehistory ]** Britain has not always been an island. -\> it became one only after the end of the last ice age. The temperature rose, and the ice cap melted, flooding the lower-lying land that is now under the North Sea and the English Channel. The first evidence of human life is a few stone tools, dating from one of the warmer periods, about 250.000 BC. 2 different kinds of inhabitant: 1. Earlier group -\> made their tools from flakes of flint, similar in kind to stone tools across the north European plain as far as Russia. 2. The other group made tools from a central core of flint, probably the earliest method of human tool making, which spread from Africa to Europe. - Britain became hardly habitable until another milder period, probably around 50,000 BC. They probably came from either the Iberian (Spanish) peninsula or\ even the North African coast. -\> They were small, dark, and long-\ headed people, and may be the forefathers of dark-haired\ inhabitants of Wales and Cornwall today. The first arrival of the Romans -\> 55 BC. - It used to be thought that these waves of invaders marked fresh stage in British development. However, although they must have brought new ideas and methods, it is now thought that the changing pattern of Britain' s prehistory was the result of local economic and social forces. The great ''public work'' of this time, which needed a huge organization of labor, tell us a little of how prehistoric Britain was developing. The earlier of these works were great ''barrows'', or burial mounds, made of earth or stone. Most of these barrows are found on the chalk uplands of south Britain. The stone hut, at Skara Brae Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland, was suddenly covered by a sandstorm before 2000 BC. -\> *Skara Brae is all stone, and the stone furniture is still there.* By 1400 BC the climate became drier, and as a result this land could no longer support many peop le. It is difficult today to imagine these areas, particularly the uplands of Wiltshire and Dorset, as heavily peopled areas. After 3000 BC the chalkland people started building great circles of earth banks and dit ches. Inside, they built wooden buildings and stone circles. These \"henges\", as they are called, were centres of religious, political and economic power. The precise purposes of Stonehenge remain a mystery, but during the second phase of building, *after about 2400 BC, huge bluestones were brought to th e site from south Wales. This could only have been achieved because the political authority of the area surrounding* Stonehenge was almost certainly a sort of capital, to which the chiefs of other groups came from all over Britain. Certainly, earth or stone henges were built in many parts of Britain, as far as the\ Orkney Islands north of Scotland, and as far south as Cornwall. After 2400 BC new groups of peop le arrived in southeast Britain from Europe. The y were round- headed and strongly built, taller than Neolithic Britons. - It is not known whether they invaded by armed force, or whether they were invited by Neolirhic Britons because of their military or metal- working skills. Their influence was soon felt and, as a result, they became leaders of British society. ***The grave of one of the ''Beaker'' people, at Barnack, Cambirgdeshire, about 1800 BC.*** It contains a finely decorated pottery beaker and copper o bronze dagger. Both items distinguished the Beaker people from the earlier inhabitants. This grave was the main burial place beneath one of a group of ''barrows'', or burial mounds. [Why did people now dec ide to be buried separately and give up the old communal burial barrows? ] - It is difficult to be certain, but it is thought that the old barrows were built partly to please the gods of the soil, in the hope that this would stop the chalk upland soil getting poorer. The Beaker people brought with them from Europe a new cereal, barley, which could grow almost anywhere. Perhaps they felt it was no longer necessary to please the gods of the cha lk upland soil ***Maiden Castle, Dorset, is one of the largest Celtic hill-forts of the early Iron Age.*** The Beaker people probably spoke an [Indo- European] language. They seem to have brought a single culture to the whole of Britain. They also brought skills to make bronze tools and these began to replace stone ones. Stonehenge remained the most important centre until 1300 BC. The Beaker people\'s richest graves were there, and they added a new circle of thirty stone columns, this time connected by stone lintels, or cross-pieces. From about 1300 BC onwards the henge civilization seems to have become less important and was overtaken by a new form of society in southern England, that of a settled farming class. At first this farming society developed in order to feed the people at the henges, but eventually it became more important and powerful as it grew richer. The new farmers grew wealthy because they learned to enrich the soil with natural waste materials so that it did not become poor and useless. **[The Celts ]** Around 700 BC, another group of people began to arrive. Many of them were tall, and had fair or red hair and blue eyes. These were the Celts, who probably came from central Europe or further east, from southern Russia, and had moved slowly westwards in earlier centuries. They knew how to work with iron and could make better weapons than the people who used bronze. - It is possible that they drove many of the older inhabitants' westwards into W\"les, Scotland and Ireland. The Celts began to control \"11 the lowland areas of Britain and were joined bv new arrivals from the European mainland. They continued to arrive in one wave after another over the next seven hundred years. The Celts are important in British history because they \"re the ancestors of many of the people in Highland Scotland. W\" les, Ireland, and Cornwall today. - Celtic languages, which have been continuously used in some areas since that time, \"re still spoken. The British today \"reoften described as Anglo-Saxon. It would he better to call them Anglo-Celr. The Celts invaded Britain or came peacefully as a result of the lively trade with Europe from about 750 BC onwards. - From about 500 BC trade contact with Europe declined, and regional differences between northwest and southeast Britain increased. The Celts were organized into different tribes, and tribal chiefs were chosen from each family or tribe, sometimes as the result of fighting matches between individuals, and sometimes by election. The last Celtic arrivals from Europe were the Belgic tribes. When Julius Caesar briefly visited Britain in 55 BC he saw that the Belgic tribes were different from the older inhabitants. \"The interior is inhabited\", he wrote, \"by peoples who consider themselves indigenous, the coast by people who have crossed from Belgium. *The Stanwick horse mask shows the fine artistic work of Celtic metalworkers in about AD 50. The simple lines and lack of detail have a very powerful effect.* Particularly in the southeast, suggests that the Celts were highly successful farmers, growing enough food for a much larger population. The insides of these hill-forts were filled with houses, and they became the simple economic capitals and smaller \"towns\" of the different tribal areas into which Britain was now divided. The Celts traded across tribal borders and trade was probably important for political and social contact between the tribes. Trade with Ireland went through the island of Anglesey. The two main trade outlets eastwards to Europe were the settlements along the Thames River in the south and on the Firth of Forth in the north. [It is no accident that the present-day capitals of England and Scotland stand on or near these two ancient trade centres. Much trade, both inside and beyond Britain , was conducted by river and sea. For money the Celts used iron bars, until they began to copy the Roman coins they saw used in Gaul (France). ] According to the Romans, the Celtic men wore shirts and breeches (knee-length trousers), and striped or checked cloaks fastened by a pin. It is possible that the Scottish tartan and dress developed from this \"striped cloak\". The Celts were also; - \"very careful about cleanliness and neatness\", as one Roman wrote. \"Neither man nor woman,\" he went on, \"however poor, was seen either ragged or dirty.\" The Celtic tribes were ruled over by a warrior class, of which the priests, or Druids, seem to have been particularly important members. - These Druids could not read or write, but they memorized all the religious teachings, the tribal laws, history, medicine and other knowledge necessary in Celtic society. - The Druids from different tribes all over Britain probably met once a year. They had no temples, but they met in sacred groves of trees, on certain hills, by rivers or by river sources. We know little of their kind of worship except that at times it included human sacrifice. During the Celtic period women may have had more independence than they had again for hundreds of years The Romans invaded Britain two of the largest tribes were ruled by women who fought from their chariots. The most powerful Celt to stand up to the Romans was a woman, Boadicea. She had become queen of her tribe when her husband had died. In AD 61 she led her tribe against the Romans. She nearly drove them from Britain, and she destroyed London, the Roman capital, before she was defeated and killed. **[The Romans ]** The name \"Britain\" comes from the word \"Pretani \", the Greco-Roman word for the inhabitants of Britain. The Romans had invaded because the Celts of Britain were working with the Celts of Gaul against them. The British Celts were giving them food and allowing them to hide in Britain. The Celts used cattle to pull their ploughs and this meant that richer, heavier land could be farmed. Under the Celts Britain had become an important food producer because of its mild climate. It now exported corn and animals, as well as hunting dogs and slaves, to the European mainland. As early as AD 80, as one Roman at the time noted, the governor Agricola \"trained the sons of chiefs in the liberal arts... the result was that the people who used to reject Latin began to use it in speech and writing. The wearing of our national dress came to be valued and the toga \[the Roman cloak\] came into fashion.\" While the Celtic peasantry remained illiterate and only Celtic- speaking, a number of town dwellers spoke Latin and Greek with ease, and the richer landowners in the country almost certainly used Latin. Britain in the fifth century AD. Britain was probably more literate under the Romans than it was to be again until the fifteenth century. Julius Caesar first came to Britain in 55 BC, but it was not until almost a century later. In AD 43, that a Roman army actually occupied Britain. The Romans were determined to conquer the whole island. The Romans considered the Celts as war-mad, \"high spirited and quick for battle\", a description some would still give the Scots, Irish and Welsh today. The Romans established a Romano-British culture across the southern half of Britain, from the River Humber to the River Severn. - These areas were watched from the towns of York, Chester and Caerleon in the western pen insula of Britain that later became known as Wales. Each of these towns was held by a Roman legion of about 7,000 men. The total Roman army in Britain was about 40,000 men. The Romans could not conquer \"Caledonia\", as they called Scotland, although they spent over a century trying to do so. At last they built a strong wall along the northern border, named after the Emperor Hadrian who planned it. - [At the time, Hadrian\'s wall was simply intended to keep out raiders from the north. But it also marked the border between the two later countries, England and Scotland. Eventually, the border was established a few miles further north. ] Roman control of Britain came to an end as the empire began to collapse. The first signs were the attacks by Celts of Caledonia in AD 367. In AD 409 Rome pulled its last soldiers out of Britain and the Romano-British, the Romanised Celts, were left to fight alone against the Scots, the Irish and Saxon raiders from Germany. **[Roman Life ]** The most obvious characteristic of Roman Britain was its towns, which were the basis of Roman administration and civilisation. 3 different kinds of town in Roman Britain: 1. The coloniae -\> town peopled by Roman settlers 2. The municipia -\> large cities in which the whole population was given Roman citizenship. 3. The civitas -\> included the old Celtic tribal capitals, through which the Romans administered the Celtic population in the countryside. *(these towns had no walls) -\> from the end of the second century to the end of the third century AD, almost every town was given walls.* At first many of these were no more than earthworks, but by AD 300 all towns had thick stone walls. The Romans left about twenty large towns of about 5,000 inhabitants, and almost one hundred smaller ones. Many of these towns were at first army camps, and the Latin word for camp, *castra,* has remained part of many town names to this day (with the ending chester, caster or cesrer): - Gloucester, - Lei- cester, - Doncaster, - Winchester, - Chester, - Lancaster and many others besides. These towns were built with stone as well as wood, and had planned streets, markets and shops. Roman occupation was the growth of large farms, called \"villas\". These belonged fa rhe richer Britons who were, like the townspeople, more Roman than Celt in their manners. ***The reconstruction of a Roman kitchen about AD 100 shows pots and equipment. The tall pots, or amphorae, were for wine or oil. The Romans produced wine in Britain, but they also imported it from southern Europe.*** It is very difficult to be sure how many people were living in Britain when the Romans left. Probably it was as many as five million. partly because of the peace and the increased economic life which the Romans had brought to the country. The new wave of invaders changed all that **Chapter 2:** **[The invaders]** The invaders came from 3 powerful Germanic tribes: 1. The Saxons, - The Anglo-Saxon migrations gave the larger part of Britain its new name, England, ''the land of the Angles'' 2. The Angles, - The Angles settled in the east, and also in the north Midlands, while the Saxons settled between the Jutes and the Angles in a band of land from the Thames Estuary westwards. 3. Jutes. - The Jutes settled mainly in Kent and along the south coast and were soon considered no different from the Angles and Saxons. The British Celts fought the raiders and settlers from Germany as well as they could. However, during the next hundred years they were slowly pushed westwards until by 570 they were forced west of Gloucester. The strength of Anglo-Saxon culture is obvious even today. Days of the week were named after Germanic gods: - Tig (Tuesday), - Wodin (Wednesday), - Thor (Thursday), - Frei (Friday) The ending -ing meant folk or family, thus \"Reading\" is rhe place of the family of Rada, \"Hastings\" of the family of Hasta. ***Ham* means farm, ton means settlement.** - Birmingham, Nottingham or Southampton, for example, are Saxon place-names. Because the Anglo-Saxon kings often established settlements, Kingston is a frequent place-name. The Anglo-Saxons established a number of kingdoms, some of which still exist in county or regional names to this day: - Essex (East Saxons), - Sussex (South Saxons), - Wessex (West Saxons), - Middlesex (probably a kingdom of Middle Saxons), - East Anglia (East Angles). - By the middle of the seventh century the three largest kingdoms, those of Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex, were the most powerful. **[Government and society\ ]**The Saxons created institutions which made the English state strong for the next 500 years. One of these institutions was the King\'s Council, called the Witan. The Witan probably grew out of informal groups of senior warriors and churchmen to whom kings like Offa had turned for advice or support on difficult matters. By the tenth century the Witan was a formal body, issuing laws and charters. It was not at all democratic, and the king could decide to ignore the Witan\'s advice. The Saxons divided the land into new administrative areas, based on *shires.* or counties. These shires, established by the end of the tenth century, remained almost exactly the same for a thousand years. \"Shire\" is the Saxon word, \"county\" the Norman one, but both are still used. (In 1974the counties were reorganised, but the new system is very like the old one.) Over each shire was appointed a *shirereeve,* the king\'s local administrator. In time his name became shortened to \"sheriff\". Anglo-Saxon technology changed the shape of English agriculture. -\> The Celts had kept small, square fields which were well suited to the light plough they used, drawn either by an animal or two people. - The Anglo-Saxons introduced a far heavier plough which was better able to plough in long straight lines across the field. It was particularly useful for cultivating heavier soils. But it required six or eight oxen to pull it, and it was difficult to turn. In each district was a \"manor\" or large house. This was a simple building where local villagers came to pay taxes, where justice was administered. and where men met together to join the Anglo-Saxon army. the *fyrd.* - The lord of the manor had to organise all this. and make sure village land was properly shared. It was the beginning of the manorial system which reached its fullest development under the Normans. At first the lords, or aldemlen. were simply local officials. But by the beginning of the eleventh century they were warlords. and were often called byanew Danish name, earl. Both words,alderman and earl. remain with us today: - aldermen are elected officers in local government. - and earls are high ranking nobles. **[Christianity ]** Christianity was accepted by the Roman Emperor Consrantine in the early fourth century AD. Christianity became firmly established across Britain, both in Roman-controlled areas and beyond. However. the Anglo-Saxons belonged to an older Germanic religion. and they drove the Celts into the west and north The map of Wales shows a number of place-names beginning or ending with *llan.* meaning the site of a small Celtic monastery around which a village or town grew. In 597 rope Gregory the Great sent a monk. Augustine. to re-establish Christianity in England. He went to Canterbury, the capital of the king of Kent. Europe and was already Christian. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in 601. - Several ruling families in England accepted Christianity. But Augustine and his group of monks made little progress with the ordinary people. The Celtic bishops went out from their monasteries of Wales, Ireland and Scotland, walking from village to village teaching Christianity. England had become Christian very quickly. By 660 only Sussex and the Isle of W ight had not accepted the new faith. Twenty years later, English teachers returned to the lands from which the Anglo-Saxons had come, bringing Christianity to much of Germany. Saxon kings helped the Church to grow, but the Church also increased the power of kings. Bishops gave kings their support, which made it harder for royal power to be questioned. Kings had \"God\'s approval\". The Church increased the power of the English state. It established monasteries, or minsters, for example: - Westminster, which were places of learning and education. These monasteries trained the men who could read and write, so that they had the necessary skills for the growth of royal and Church authority. Alfred, the great king who ruled Wessex from 871- 899. He used the Iterate men of the Church to help establish a system of law, to educate the people and to write down important matters. The Anglo-Saxon kings also preferred the Roman Church to the Celtic Church for economic reasons. Villages and towns grew around the monasteries and increased local trade. - Bishops and monks in England were from the Frankish lands (France and Germany) and elsewhere. They were invited by English rulers who wished to benefit from closer Church and economic contact with Europe. **[The Vikings ]** The end of the eighth century new raiders were tempted by Britain\'s wealth. These were the Vikings, a word which probably means either \"pirates\" or \"the people of the sea inlets\", and they came from Norway and Denmark. In 865 the Vikings invaded Britain once it was clear that the quarrelling Anglo-Saxon kingdoms could not keep them out. -\> they came to conquer and to settle. - The Vikings quickly accepted Christianity and did not disturb the local population. By 875 only King Alfred in the west of Wessex held out against the Vikings, who had already taken most of England. Alfred won a decisive battle in 878, and eight years later he captured London. He was strong enough to make a treaty with the Vikings. Viking rule was recognized in the east and north of England. It was called the Danclaw, the land where the law of the Danes ruled. In the rest of the country Alfred was recognized as king. -\> During his struggle against the Danes, he had built walled settlements to keep them out. - These were called *burghs. -\>* They became prosperous market towns, and the word, now usually spelt *borough.* is one of the commonest endings to place names, as well as the name of the unit of municipal or town administration today. **[Who should be king? ]** By 950 England seemed rich and peaceful again after the troubles of the Viking invasion, but soon afterwards the Danish Vikings started raiding westwards. The Saxon king, Ethelred, decided to pay the Vikings to stay away. To find the money he set a tax on all his people, called *Danegeld,* or \"Danish money\". **It** was the beginning of a regular tax system of the people which would provide the money for armies. When Ethelred died Cnut (or Canute), the leader of the Danish Vikings, controlled much of\ England. He became king for the simple reason that the royal council, the Witan, and everyone else, feared disorder. Rule by a Danish king was far better than rule by no one at all. Cnut died in 1035, and his son died shortly after, in 1040. The Witan chose Edward, one of Saxon Ethelred\'s sons, to be king. - Edward, known as \"the Confessor\". was more interested in the Church than in kingship. Church building had been going on for over a century. and he encouraged it. -\> He only lived until 1066, when he died without an obvious heir. *By the time Edward died there was a church in almost every village. The pattern of the English village, with its manor house and church, dates from this time. Edward started a new church flt for a king at Westminster, just outside the city of London. In fact, Westlllinster Abbey was a Norman, not a Saxon building, because he had spent almost all his life in Normandy, and his mother was a daughter of the duke of Normandy.* The Witan chose to be the next king of England. Harold had already shown his bravery and ability. He had no royal blood, but he seemed a good choice for the throne of England. - Harold\'s right to the English throne was challenged by Duke William of Normandy. William had two claims to the English throne. His first claim was that King Edward had promised it to him. The second claim was that Harold, who had visited William in 1064 or 1065, had promised William that he, Harold, would not try to take the throne for himself. Duke William of Normandy claimed the English throne. The Norman solders were beter armed, better organized, and were mounted on horses. Harold was defeated and killed in battle. William was crowned king of England. **Chapter 3:** **[Wales]** By the eighth century most of the Celts had been driven into the Welsh peninsula. They were kept out of England by Offa\'s Dyke, the huge earth wall built in AD 779. *These Celts, called Welsh by the Anglo-Saxons, called themselves cymry, \"fellow countrymen\".* Society was based on family groupings, each of which owned one or more village or farm settlement. One by one in each group a strong leader made himself king. - These men must have been tribal chiefs to begin with, who later managed to become overlords over neighbouring family groups. Each of these kings tried to conquer the others, and the idea of a high, or senior, king developed. Life was dangerous, treacherous and bloody. In 1043 the king of Glamorgan died of old age.\ It was an unusual event, because between 949 and 1066 no less than thirty-five Welsh rulers died violently, usually killed by a *cymry,* a fellow countryman. In 1039 Gruffydd ap (son of) L1ewelyn was the first Welsh high king strong enough to rule over all Wales. He was also the last, and in order to remain in control he spent almost the whole of his reign fighting his enemies. Gruffydd was killed by a *cymry* while defending\' Wales against the Saxons. Welsh kings after him were able to rule only after they had promised loyalty to Edward the Confessor, king of England. The story of an independent and united Wales was over almost as soon as it had begun. **[Ireland ]** Ireland was never invaded by either the Romans or the Anglo-Saxons. It was a land of monasteries and had a flourishing Celtic culture. Five kingdoms grew up in Ireland: - Ulster in the north, - Munsrer in the sourhwest, - Leinster in the southeast, - Connaught in the west, with Tara as the seat of the high kings of Ireland. Christianity came to Ireland in about AD 430. The message of Christianity was spread in Ireland by a British slave, Parrick, who became the \"patron saint\" of Ireland. Christianity brought wriring, which weakened the position of the Druids, who depended on memory and the spoken word. - This period is often called Ireland\'s \"golden age\". Invaders were unknown, and culture flowered. But ir is also true that the five kingdoms were often at war, each trying to gain advantage over the other, often with great cruel ty. This \"golden age\" suddenly ended with the arrival of Viking raiders, who stole all that the monasteries had. - The Vikings, who traded with Constantinople (now Istanbul), Italy, and with central Russia, brought fresh economic and political action into Irish life. In 859 Ireland chose its first high king, but it was not an effective solution because of the quarrels that took place each time a new high king was chosen. Viking trade led to the first towns and ports. - For the Celts, who had always *lived* in small settlements, these were revolutionary. Dublin, Ireland \'s future capital, was founded by the Vikings. - As an effective method of rule the high kingship of Ireland lasted only twelve years, from 1002 to 1014, while Ireland was ruled by Btian Boru. He tried to create one single Ireland and encouraged the growth of organ isation - in the Church, in administration, and in learning. Brian Boru died in battle against the Vikings. One of the five Irish kings, the king of Leinsrer, fought on the Vikings\' side. **[Scotland ]** In the centre of Scotland mountains stretch to the far north and across to the west, beyond which lie many islands. North of the \"Highland Line\", as the division between highland and lowland is called, people stayed tied to their own family groups. South and east of th is line society was more easily influenced by the changes taking place in England. - They spoke Celtic as well as another, probably older, language completely unconnected with any known language today, and they seem to have been the earliest inhabitants of the land. *The Picts were different from the Celts because they inherited their rights, their names and property from their mothers, not from their fathers.* The non-Pictish inhabitants were mainly Scots. The Scots were Celtic settlers who had started to *move* into the western Highlands from Ireland in the fourth century. In 843 the Pictish and Scottish kingdoms were united under a Scottish king, who could also probably claim the Pictish throne through his mother, in this way obeying both Scottish and Pictish rules of kingship. *(The name of their kingdom, Strathclyde, was used again in the county reorganization of 1974.)* The spread of Celtic Christianity also helped to unite the people. The first Christian mission to Scotland had come to southwest Scotland in about AD 400. Later, in 563, Columba, known as the \"Dove of the Church\", came from Ireland. By the time of the Synod of Whitby in 663, the Piers, Scots and Britons had all been brought closer together by Christianity. Vikings attacked the coastal areas of Scotland, and they settled on many of the islands, Shetland, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man southwest of Scotland. In order to resist them, Piers and Scots fought together against the enemy raiders and settlers At first the Vikings, or \"Norsemen\", still served the king of Norway. But communications with Norway were difficult. Slowly the earls of Orkney and other areas found it easier to accept the king of Scots as their overlord, rather than the more distant king of Norway. The English were a greater danger than the Vikings. -\> In 934 the Scots were seriously defeated by a Wessex anny pushing northwards. England was obviously stronger than Scotland but, luckily for the Scots, both the north of England and Scotland were difficult to control from London. Scotland remained a difficult country to rule even from its capital, Edinburgh. **Chapter 4:** ============== **[The Norman Conquest ]** The Norman War ended in disorder when the people at Westminster Abbey attacked William the Conqueror, causing the coronation ceremony to end. There was an Anglo-Saxon rebellion against the Norrnans in 1070, and the Norman army marched from village to village, destroying places it could not control. When the Saxons fought back, the Normans burnt and killed. It took a century for the north to recover and few Saxon lords kept their lands. By 1086, only two of the greater landlords were left standing. - Saxon lands to his Norman nobles, after each English rebellion there was more land to give away. - His army included Norman and other French land seekers. - Over 4.000 Saxon landlords were replaced by 200 Norman ones. **[Feudalism ]** William was careful in the way he lands to his nobles. They held separate small piece of land in different parts of the country so that no noble could easily or quickly gather his fighting men to rebel. - Of all the farmland of England he gave half to the Norman Nobles, a quarter to the Church, and kept a fifth himself. William organized his English kingdom according to the feudal system which had already begun to develop in England before his arrival. The basis of feudal society was the holding of land, and its main purpose was economic. The central idea was that the king owned all land but other, called ''vassals'', in return for services and goods, held it. - The king gave large states to his main nobles in return for a promise to serve him in war for up to forty days. The nobles also have to give him part of the produce of the land. The greater nobles gave part of their lands to lesser nobles, knights, and other ''freeman''. -\> some freeman paid for the land by ding military service, while others paid rent. These were not free to leave the estate and were often little better than slaves. At each level, a man had to promise loyalty and service to his lord and each lord had responsibilities to his vassals. - He had to give them land and protection. William gave out land all over England to his nobles. He wanted to know exactly who owned which piece of land, and how much it was worth. He wanted to know exactly who owned which piece of land, and how much it was worth. -\> he needed this information so that he could plan his economy, fund out how much was produced and how much he could ask in tax. That's why he sends of people all through England to make a complete economic survey. - William was careful in the way he gave land to his nobles. - The king of France was less powerful than many of the great landlords. - William gave parts of it as a reward to his captains. - This meant that they held separate small pieces of land in different parts of the country so that no noble could easily or quickly gather his fighting men to rebel. - William only gave some of his nobles larger estates along the troublesome borders with Wales and Scotland. - At the same time, he kept enough land for himself to make sure he was much stronger than his nobles, Of all the farmland of England he gave half to the Norman nobles, a quarter to the Church, and kept a fifth himself. - He kept the Saxon system of sheriffs and used these as a balance to local nobles. - As a result, England was different from the rest of Europe because it had one powerful family, instead of a large number of powerful nobles. If the king did not give the nobles land they would not fight for him. Between 1066 and the mid- fourteenth century there were only thirty years of complete peace. So feudal duties were extremely important. The king had to make sure he had enough satisfied nobles who would be willing to fight for him. William gave our land all over England to his nobles, by 1086 he wanted to know exactly who owned which piece of land. and how much it was worth. He needed this information so rhar he could plan his economy. find our how much was produced and how much he could ask in tax. He therefore sent a team of peop le all through England to make a complete economic survey**.** **[Kingship ]** William controlled two large areas: - Normandy, which he had been given by his father, and England, which he had won in war. - Both were personal possessions, and it did not matter to the rulers that the ordinary people of one place were English while those of another were French. When William died, in 1087, he left the Duchy of Normandy to his cider son, Robert. He gave England to his second son, William, known as \"Rufus\" (Lat in for red) because of his red hair and red face. When Robert went to fight the Muslims in the Holy Land, he left William 11 (Rufus) in charge of Normandy. William Rufus died in a hunting accident in 1100, shot dead by an arrow. He had not married, and therefore had no son to take the crown. At the time of William\'s death, Robert was on his way home to Normandy from the Holy Land. Their younger brother. Henry. knew that if he wanted the English crown he would have to act very quickly. In 1106 Henry invaded Normandy and captured Robert. Normandy and England were reunited under one ruler. **Henry** l\'s **most important aim was to pass on both** Normandy and England to his successor. He spent the rest of his life fighting to keep Normandy from other French nobles who tried to take it. But in 1120 Henry\'s only son was drowned at sea. During the next fifteen years Henry hoped for another son but finally accepted that his daughter, Matilda, would follow him. Henry had married Matilda to another great noble in France, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Geoffrey was heir to Anjou, a large **and important area southwest of Normandy.** - **Henry** hoped that the family lands would be made larger by this marriage. He made all the nobles promise to accept Matilda when he died. But then Henry himself quarreled publicly with Matilda\'s husband, and died soon after. Matilda invaded England four years later. Her fight with Stephen led to a terrible civil war in which **villages were destroyed and many people** were killed. Neither side could win, and finally in 1153 Matilda and Stephen agreed that Stephen could keep the throne but only if Matilda\'s son, Henry, could succeed him. It took years for England to recover from the civil war. - As someone wrote at the time, \"*For nineteen long winters, God and his angels slept. \" This kind of disorder and destruction was common in Europe, but it was shocking in England because people were used to the rule of law and order.* ***Henry II** was the first unquestioned ruler of the English throne for a hundred years. He destroyed the castles which many nobles had built without royal permission during Srephen\'s reign and made sure that they lived in manor houses that were undefended.* Henry II was ruler of far more land than any previous king. As lord of Anjou he added his father\'s lands to the family empire. After his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine he also ruled the lands south of Anjou. Henry ll\'s empire stretched from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. In 1189 Henry died a broken man, disappointed and defeated by his sons and by the French king. Henry was followed by his rebellious son, Richard. **Richard I has always been one of England\'s most popular kings, although he spent hardly any time in England.** He was brave, and a good soldier, but his nickname Coeur de Lion, \"lion heart\", shows that his culture, like that of the kings before him, was French - On his way back from the Holy Land Richard was captured by the duke of Austria, with whom he had quarreled in Jerusalem. Shortly after, in 1199, **Richard was killed in France**. *\ He had spent no more than four or five years in the country of which he was king.* -\> When he died the French king took over parts of Richard\'s French lands to rule himself. **Chapter 6:** **[The growth of government ]** William the Conqueror had governed England and Normandy by travelling from one place to another to make sure that his authority was accepted. There was no teal capital of the kingdom as there is today. - **Kings were crowned in Westminster,** but their treasury stayed in the old Wessex capital, Winchester. This form of government could only work well for a small kingdom. By the time the English kings were ruling half of France as well they could no longer travel everywhere themselves. - Instead, they sent nobles and knights from the royal household to act as sheriffs. *But even this system needed people who could administer taxation, justice, and cary out the king\'s instructions*. It was obviously not practical for all these people to follow the king everywhere. At first this \"administration\" was based in Winchester, but by the time of Edward I, in 1290, it had moved to Westminster. However, even though the administration was in Westminster the real capital of England was still \"in the king\'s saddle\". In 1130 well over half of Henry I\'s money came from his own land, one-third from his feudal vassals in rights and fines, and only one-seventh from taxes. One hundred and fifty years later, over half of Edward Its money came from taxes, but only one- third came from his land and only one-tenth from his feudal vassals. In 1050 only the king (Edward the Confessor) had a seal with which to \"sign\" official papers. By the time of Edward I, just over two hundred years later, even the poorest man was expected to have a seal in order to sign official papers, even if he could not read. - From 1199 the administration in Westminster kept copies of all the letters and documents that were sent out. In 1220, at the beginning of Henry Ill\'s reign, 1.5 kg were used each week. Forty years later, in 1260, this had risen to *14 kg weekly*. And government administration has been growing ever since. **[Law and justice ]** In Saxon times every district had had its own laws and customs, and justice had often been a family matter. After the Norman Conquest nobles were allowed to administer justice among the villages and people on their lands. Usually they mixed Norman laws with the old Saxon laws. They had freedom to act more or less as they liked. More serious offences, however, were tried in the king\'s courts. **Henry II,** the most powerful English king of the **twelfth century,** was known in Europe for the high standards of his lawcourts. - *\"The convincing proof of our king\'s strength, \" wrote one man. \"is that whoever has a just cause wants to have it tried before him, whoever has a weak one does not come unless he is dragged.\"* - England was unlike the rest of Europe because it used common law**.** **Centuries later. England\'s common law system was used in the United States** (the North American colonies) and in many other British colonial possessions and accepted when these became nations in their own right. In other parts of Europe legal practice was based on the Civil Law of the Roman Empire, and the Canon Law of the Church. From Anglo-Saxon times there had been two ways of deciding difficult cases when it was not clear if a man was innocent or guilty. The accused man could be tested in battle against a skilled fighter or tested by \"ordeal\". - A typical \"ordeal\" was to put a hot iron on the man\'s tongue. If the burn mark was still there three days later, he was thought to be guilty. By the end of the twelfth century there were serious doubts and in 1215 the pope forbade the Church to have anything to do with trial byordeal. Henry II had already introduced the use of juries for some cases in the second half of the twelfth century. - In 1179 he allowed an accused man in certain cases to claim \"trial by jury\". The man could choose twelve neighbours, \"twelve good men and true\". who would help him prove that he was not guilty. **[Religious beliefs ]** The Church at local village level was significantly different from the politically powerful organisation the king had to deal with. At the time of William I the ordinary village priest could hardly read at all, and he was usually one of the peasant community**.** His church belonged to the local lord and was often built next to the lord\'s house. The Church also tried to prevent priests from marrying, In this it was more successful, and by the end of the thirteenth century married priests were unusual. In 1066 there were fifty religious houses in England, home for perhaps 1,000 monks and nuns. By the beginning of the **fourteenth century** there were probably about 900 religious houses, with 17,500 members. Even though the population in the **fourteenth century** was three times larger than it had been in 1066, the growth of the monasteries is impressive. The **thirteenth century** brought a new movement, the \"brotherhoods\" of friars. These friars were wandering preachers. They were interested not in Church power and splendour, but in the souls of ordinary men and women. They lived with the poor and tried to bring the comfort of Christianity to them. They lived in contrast with the wealth and power of the monasteries and cathedrals, the local centres of the Church. **[Ordinary people in country and town]** The poor were divided from their masters by the feudal class system. The basis of this \"manorial system\" was the exchange of land for labour. The landlord expected the villagers to work a fixed number of days on his own land, the \"home farm\". The rest of the time they worked on their small strips of land, part of the village\'s \"common land\" on which they grew food for themselves and their family. **[The growth of towns as centres of wealth ]** During the Anglo-Saxon period most, European trade had been with the Frisians in the Low Countries, around the mouth of the River Rhine. Following the Viking **invasions most trade from the ninth century** onwards had taken place with Scandinavia. By the **eleventh century**, for example, English grain was highly valued in Norway. In return England imported Scandinavian fish and tall timber. However, by the end of the twelfth century this Anglo-Scandinavian trade link had weakened. This was the result of the Norman Conquest, after which England looked away from the northeast, Scandinavia and Germany, and towards the south, France, the Low Countries, and beyond. England had always been famous for its wool, and in Anglo-Saxon times much of it had been\ exported to the Low Countries. In order to improve the manufacture of woollen cloth, William the Conqueror encouraged Flemish weavers and other skilled workers from Normandy to settle in England. The king taxed the export of raw wool heavily as a means of increasing his own income. It was easily England\'s most profitable business. When Richard I was freed from his captivity, over half the price was paid in wool. At the end of the Anglo-Saxon period there were only a few towns, but by 1250 most of England\'s towns were already established. Within the towns and cities, society and the economy were mainly controlled by \"guilds\". - These were brotherhoods of different kinds of merchants, or of skilled workers. The word \"guild\" came from the Saxon word \"gildan\", to pay, because members paid towards the cost of the brotherhood. During the fourteenth century, as larger towns continued to grow. \"craft\" guilds came into being. All members of each of these guilds belonged to the same trade or craft. The earliest craft guilds were those of the weavers in London and Oxford. **[Language, literature and culture ]** The growth of literacy in England was closely connected with the twelfth-century Renaissance, a cultural movement which had first started in Italy. Some were \"grammar\" schools independent of the Church, while others were attached to a cathedral. All of these schools taught Latin, because most books were written in this language. Although it may seem strange for education to be based on a dead language, Latin was important because it was the educated language of almost all Europe, and was therefore useful in the spread of ideas and learning In England two schools of higher learning were established, the first at Oxford and the second at Cambridge, at the end of the **twelfth century**. - By the 1220s these two universities were the intellectual leaders of the country. Most English people spoke neither Latin, the language of the Church and of education, nor French, the language of law and of the Norman rulers. Some French words became part of the English language, and often kept a politer meaning than the old Anglo-Saxon words. - For example, the word \"chair\", which came from the French, describes a better piece of furniture than the Anglo-Saxon word \"stool\". - In the same way, the Anglo-Saxon word \"belly\" was replaced in polite society by the word \"stomach\". **Chapter 7:** The **fourteenth century** was disastrous for Britain as well as most of Europe, because of the effect of wars and plagues. Probably one-third of Europe\'s population died of plague. In the 1330s England began a long struggle against the French Crown In France villages were raided or destroyed by passing armies. France and England were exhausted economically by the cost of maintaining armies. *England had the additional burden of fighting the Scots, and maintaining control of Ireland and Wales, both of which were trying to throw off English rule.* It is difficult to measure the effects of war and plague on **fourteenth-century** Britain, except in deaths. Already in 1327 one king had been murdered by powerful nobles, and another one was murdered in 1399. These murders weakened respect for the Crown and encouraged repeated struggles for it amongst the king\'s most powerful relations. In the following century a king, or a king\'s eldest son, was killed in 1461, 1471, 1483 and 1485. But in the end the nobles destroyed themselves and as a class they disappeared. **[War with Scotland and France]** England\'s wish to control Scotland had suffered a major setback at Bannockburn in 1314. After other unsuccessful attempts England gave up its claim to overlordship of Scotland in 1328. However, it was not long before the two countries were at war again, but this time because of England\'s war with France. After Edward I\'s attempt to take over Scotland in 1295, the Scots turned to the obviousally, the king of France, for whom there were clear advantages in an alliance with Scotland. France benefited more than Scotland from it, but both countries agreed that whenever England attacked one of them, the other would make trouble behind England\'s back. France had suffered for centuries from rebellious vassals, and the two most troublesome were - the duke of Burgundy and - the English king (who was still the king of France\'s vassal as duke of Aquitaine), England went to war because it could not afford the destruction of its trade with Flanders. It was difficult to persuade merchants to pay for wars against the Scots or the Welsh, from which there was so little wealth to be gained. But the threat to thei r trade and wealth persuaded the rich merchant classes of England tha t war against France was absolutely necessary. The lords, knights and fighting men also looked forward to the possibility of winning riches and lands. Edward III declared war on France in 1337. -\> His excuse was a bold one: he claimed the right to the French Crown. The war Edward began, later called the Hundred Years War, did not finally end until 1453, with the English Crown losing all its possessions in France except for Calais, a northern French port. At first the English were far more successful than the French on the battlefield. The English army was experienced through its wars in Wales and in Scotland. These arrows could go through most armour. The value of the longbow was proved in two victories, - at Crecy in 1346 - and at Poitiers in 1356, where the French king himself was taken prisoner. The English captured a huge quantity of treasure, and it was said that after the battle of Poiriers every woman in England had a French bracelet on her arm. By the treaty of Brerignv, in 1360, Edward III was happy to give up his claim to the French throne because he had re-established control over areas previously held by the English Crown. True to the \"Auld Alliance\" the king of Scots had attacked England in 1346, but he was defeated and taken prisoners. **[The age of chivalry ]** Edward III and his eldest son, the Black Prince, were greatly admired in England for their courage on the battlefield and for their courtly manners. During the reign of Edward interest grew in the legendary King Arthur. Arthur, if he ever existed, was probably a Celtic ruler who fought the Anglo- Saxons, but we know nothing more about him. - The fourteenth-century legend created around Arthur included both the imagined magic and mystery of the Celts, and also the knightly values of the court of Edward Ill. **[The century of plagues]** The year 1348 CE brought an event of far greater importance than the creation of a new order of chivalry, This was the terrible plague, known as the **Black Death**, which reached almost every part of Britain during 1348-9. The Black Death was neither the first natural disaster of the fourteenth century, nor the last, Plagues had killed sheep and other animals earlier in the century. It would eventually kill between a third and half of the population. These huge death tolls sparked off a chain of events that would change the position of the peasant in England forever. Because so many had died, there were far fewer people to work the land: peasants were therefore able to demand better conditions and higher wages from their landlords. Many advanced to higher positions in society. After the Black Death there were other plagues during the rest of the century which killed mostly the young and healthy. In 1300 the population of Britain had probably been over four million At the end of the thirteenth century the sharp rise in prices had led an increasing number of landlords to stop paying workers for their labour, and to go back to serf labour in order to avoid losses. -\> In return villagers were given land to farm, but this tenanted land was often the poorest land of the manorial estate. There had been other economic changes during the fourteenth century. The most important of these was the replacement of wool by finished cloth as England's main export. This change was the natural result of the very high prices at which English wool was sold in Flanders by the end of the thirteenth century. This process suddenly grew very rapidly after the Flemish cloth industry itself collapsed during the years 1320 to 1360. Hundreds of skilled Flemings came to England in search of work. They were encouraged to do so by Edward III because there was a clear benefit to England in exporting a finished product rather than a raw material **[The poor in revolt ]** It is surprising that the English never rebelled against Edward III. -\> He was an expensive king at a time when many people were miserably poor and sick with plagues At the time of the Black Death he was busy with expensive wars against France and Scotland. Edward's grandson, Richard, was less fortunate. He became King on his grandfather's death in 1377 because his father, the Black Prince, had died a few months earlier. Richard II inherited the problems of discontent but had neither the diplomatic skill of his grandfather, nor the popularity of his father. - In the year he became king, these advisers introduced a tax payment for every person over the age of fifteen. Two years later, this tax was enforced again. The people paid. But in 1381 this tax enforced for a third time and also increased to three times the previous amount. The new tax had led to revolt, but there were also other reasons for discontent. The landlords had been trying for some time to force the peasants back into serfdom, because serf, because serf labour was cheaper than paid labour. The idea that God had created all people equal called for an end to feudalism and respect for honest labour. But the Peasants\' Revolt, as it was called, only lasted for four weeks. During that period the peasants took control of much of London. - When Wat Tyler was killed, Richard II skillfully quietened the angry crowd. He promised to meet all the people's demands, including an end to serfdom, and the people peacefully went home. **[Heresy and orthodoxy ]** The Church was a feudal power, and often treated its peasants and townspeople with as much cruelty as the nobles did. There was another reason why the people of England disliked paying taxes to the pope. Edward's wars in France were beginning to make the English conscious of their ''Englishness'' and the pope was a foreigner. The increase in private prayer was a direct threat to the authority of the Church over the religious life of the population. This was because these writings allowed people to pray and think independently of Church control. Private religious experience and the increase of knowledge encouraged people to challenge the Church\'s authority, and the way it used this to advance its political influence. Most people were happy to accept the continued authority of the Church, but some were not. At the end of the fourteenth century new religious ideas appeared in England which were dangerous to Church authority and were condemned as heresy. One of the leaders of Lollardy was John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor. He believed that everyone should be able to read the Bible in English, and to be guided by it in order to save their soul. He therefore translated it from Latin, finishing the work in 1396. - Lollardy = latin for ''to say prayer'' If the Lollards had been supported by the king. the English Church might have become independent from the papacy in the early fifteenth century. But Richard\'s successor, Henry IV, was not sympathetic. He was deeply loyal to the Church, and in 1401 introduced into England for the first time the idea of executing the Lollards by burning. **Chapter 8:** **[The crisis of kingship ]** During the fourteenth century, towards the end of the Middle Ages, there was a continuous struggle between the king and his nobles. The first crisis came in 1327 when Edward II was deposed and cruelly murdered. His eleven-year-old son, Edward III, became king, and as soon as he could, he punished those responsible. But the principle that kings were neither to be killed nor deposed was broken. Towards the end of the fourteenth century Richard II was the second king to be killed by ambitious lords. In 1399, when Richard II was busy trying to establish royal authority again in Ireland, they rebelled. Unlike Edward II, however, Richard II had no children. There were two possible successors. 1. One was the earl of March, the seven-year-old grandson of Edward III's second son. 2. The other was Henry of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt. It was difficult to say which had the better claim to the throne. But Henry was stronger. He won the support of other powerful nobles and took the crown by force. Richard died mysteriously soon after. **[Wales in revolt ]** Edward I had conquered Wales in the 1280s, and colonized it. Many Welsh were forced to join the English army, not because they wanted to serve the English but because they had lost their land and needed to live. They fought in Scotland and in France and taught the English their skill with the longbow. A century later the Welsh found a man who was ready to rebel against the English king, and whom they were willing to follow. - Owain Glyndwr was the first and only Welsh prince to have wide and popular support in every part of Wales. In fact, it was he who created the idea of a Welsh nation. He was descended from two royal families which had ruled in different parts of Wales before the Normans came. Owain Glyndwr's rebellion did not start as a national revolt. At first he joined the revolt of Norman-Welsh border lords who had always tried to be free of royal control. But after ten years of war Owain Glyndwr's border rebellion had developed into a national war, and in 1400 he was proclaimed Prince of Wales by his supporters. **[The struggle in France ]** 1337 CE: start Hundred Years' war The Hundred Years' War was a conflict between the monarchs of France and England. Starting in 1337 and finally ended until 1453, the war lasted for 116 years, albeit not with continuous fighting but also long periods of peace included. - The name we use today for the war was only coined in the 19^th^ century. The Hundered Years' War is traditionally divided into 3 phases for the purposes of study and to reflect the important periods of peace between the two countries:\ - The Edwardian War (1337-1360) after Edward III of England\ - The Caroline War (1369-1389) after Charles V of France\ - The Lancastrian War (1415-1453) after the royal house of England, the Lancasters When Henry IV died in 1413 he passed on to his son Henry V a kingdom that was peaceful and united. The war began again in 1415 when Henry renewed Edward Ill\'s claim to the throne of France. Burgundy again supported England, and the English army was able to prove once more that it was far better in battle than the French army. Between 1417 and 1420 Henry managed to capture most of Normandy and the nearby areas. By the treaty of Troyes in 1420 Henry was recognized as heir to the mad king, and he married Katherine of Valois, the king's daughter. But Henry V never became king of France because he died a few months before the Frence king in 1422. -\> his nine-month-old baby son, Henry VI, inherited the thrones of England and France. The war began again in 1415 when Henry renewed Edward Ill\'s claim to the throne of France. Burgundy again supported England, and the English army was able to prove once more that it was far better in battle than the French army. The English army was twice defeated by the French, who were inspired by a mysterious peasant girl called Joan of Arc, who claimed to hear heavenly voices. Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians and given to the English. - The English gave her to the Church in Rouen which burnt her as a witch in 1431. In 1435 England\'s best general, John of Bedford, died. Then England\'s Breron and Burgundian allies lost confidence in the value of the English alliance. With the loss of Gasconyin 1453, the Hundred Years War was over. England had lost everything except rhe port of Calais. **[The Wars of the Roses]** 1455 CE: War of the roses\ Series of dynastic civil wars between the houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne. The wars were named for the emblems of the two houses, the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster. Both claimed the throne through descent from Edward III. Lancastrians held the throne from 1399, but the country fell into a state of near anarchy during the reign of Henry VI, and during one of Henry's bouts with madness in 1453 the duke of York was declared protector of the realm. **Henry VI**, who had become king as a baby, grew up to be simple-minded and book-loving. He hated the warlike nobles, and was an unsuitable king for such a violent society. He founded two places of learning that still exist, 1. Eton College not far from London 2. King's College in Cambridge The discontented nobility were divided between those who remained loyal to Henry VI, - the \"Lancastrians\", - and those who supported the duke of York, the\"Yorkisrs\" In 1460 the duke of York claimed the throne for himself. After his death battle, his son Edward took up the struggle and won the throne in 1461. Edward IV put Henry into the Tower London, but nine years later a new Lancastrian army rescued Henry and chased Edward out of the country. Henry VI died in the T ower of London soon after, almost certainly murdered. When Edward IV died in 1483, his own two sons, the twelve-year-old Edward V and his younger brother, were put in the Tower by Richard of Gloucester. Richard took the Crown and became King Richard III. A month later the two princes were murdered. William Shakespeare's play Richard III, written a century later, accuses Richard of murder and almost everyone believed it. In 1485 a challenger with a very distant claim to royal blood through John of Gaunt landed in England with Breton soldiers to claim the throne. The war had finally ended, though this could not have been clear at the time. Much later, in the nineteenth century, the novelist Walter Scott named these wars the "Wars of the Roses", because York's symbol was a white rose, and Lancaster's a red one. The Wars of the Roses nearly destroyed the English idea of kingship for ever. After 1460 there had been little respect for anything except the power to take the Crown. **[Scotland ]** England renewed its claim to overlordship of Scotland, and Edward IV's army occupied Edinburgh in 1482. James I was murdered in 1437, James II died in an accident before he was thirty in 1460, and James III was murdered in 1488. The early death of so many Scots kings left government in the hands of powerful nobles until the dead king's son was old enough to rule. By the end of the Middle Ages, however, Scotland had developed as a nation in a number of ways. From 1399 the Scots demanded that a parliament should meet once a year, and kings often gathered together leading citizens to discuss matters of government. **Chapter 9:** **[Government and society ]** The year 1485 has usually been taken to mark the end of the Middle Ages in England. Society was still based upon rank. At the top were dukes, earls and other lords, although there were far fewer as a result of war. By the fifteenth century most merchants were well educated, and considered themselves to be the equals of the esquires and gentlemen of the countryside. The lawyers were another class of city people. In London they were considered equal in importance to the big merchants and cloth manufacturers. When law schools were first established, student lawyers lived in inns on the western side of the City of London while they studied. By the end of the Middle Ages the more successful of these lawyers, merchants, cloth manufacturers, exporters, esquires, gentlemen and yeoman farmers were increasingly forming a single class of people with interests in both town and country. This was also true in Wales and Scotland. The growth of this new middle class, educated and skilled in law, administration and trade, created a new atmosphere in Britain. In 1363 Edward III appointed \"justices of the peace\" to deal with smaller crimes and offences, and to hold court four times a year. These JPs, as they became known, were usually less important lords or members of the landed gentry. They were, and still are, chosen for their fairness and honesty. Through the system of JPs the landed gentry took the place of the nobility as the local authority. During the Wars of the Roses the nobles used their private armies to force JPs and judges to do what they wanted. But this was the last time the nobility in Britain tried to destroy the authority of the king. The JPs remained the only form of local government in the countryside until 1888. They still exist to deal with small offences. **[The condition of women ]** The Church taught that women should obey their husbands. It also spread two very different ideas about women: that they should be pure and holy like the Virgin Mary; and that, like Eve, they could not be trusted and were a moral danger to men. Marriage was usually the single most important event in the lives of men and women. But the decision itself was made by the family, not the couple themselves. This was because by marriage a family could improve its wealth and social position. Everyone, both rich and poor, marries for mainly financial reasons. Once married, a woman had to accept her husband as her master. A disobedient wife was usually beaten. It is unlikely that love played much of a part in most marriages. A woman's position improved of her husband died. She could get control of the money her family had given the husband at the time of marriage, usually about one-third of his total land and wealth. But she might have to marry again: men wanted her land, and it was difficult to look after it without the help of a man. **[Language and culture ]** The language itself was changing. French had been used less and less by the Norman rulers during the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century Edward III had actually forbidden the speaking of French in his army. It was a way of making the whole army aware of its Englishness. After the Norman Conquest English (the old Anglo-Saxon language) continued to be spoken by ordinary people but was no longer written. By the end of the fourteenth century, however, English was once again a written language, because it was being used instead of French by the ruling, literate class. But \"Middle English\", the language of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was very different from Anglo-Saxon. Two writers, above all others, helped in the rebirth of English literature. One was William Langland, a mid-fourteenth century priest, whose poem Piers Plowman gives a powerful description of the times in which he lived. The other, Geoffrey Chaucer, has become much more famous. He lived at about the same time as Langland. His most famous work was The Tales, written at the end of the fourteenth century. The Canterbury Tales describe a group of pilgrims travelling from London to the tomb of Thomas Becker at Canterbury, a common religious act in England in the Middle Ages. By the end of the Middle Ages, English as well as Latin was being used in legal writing, and also in elementary schools. Education developed enormously during the fifteenth century, and many schools were founded by powerful men. One of these was William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England, who founded both Winchester School, in 1382, and New College, Oxford. Like Henry VI\'s later foundations at Eton and Cambridge they have remained famous for their high quality. Clerks started grammar schools where students could learn the skills of reading and writing. These schools offered their pupils a future in the Church or the civil *service,* or at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. **Chapter 10:** The century of Tudor rule (1485-1603) is often thought of as a most glorious period in English history. Henry VII built the foundations of a wealthy nation state and a powerful monarchy. His son, Henry VIII, kept a magnificent court, and made the Church in England truly English by breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church. **[The new monarchy ]** Henry VII firmly believed that war and glory were bad for business, and that business was good for the state. He therefore avoided quarrels either with Scotland in the north, or France in the south. During the fifteenth century, but particularly during the Wars of the Roses, England\'s trading position had been badly damaged. The strong German Hanseatic League, a closed trading society, had destroyed English trade with the Baltic and northern Europe. Trade with Italy and France had also been reduced after England\'s defeat in France in the mid-fifteenth century When Henry died in 1509 he left behind the huge total of £2 million, about fifteen years\' worth of income. The only thing on which he was happy to spend money freely was the building of ships for a merchant fleet. Henry understood earlier than most people that England\'s future wealth would depend on international trade. Henry VIll was quite unlike his father. He was cruel, wasteful with money, and interested in pleasing himself. He wanted to become an important influence in European politics. But much had happened in Europe since England had given up its efforts to defeat France in the Hundred Years War. France was now more powerful than England, and Spain was even more powerful, because it was united with the Holy Roman Empire (which included much of central Europe). **[The reformation ]** The Church was a huge landowner, and the monasteries were no longer important to economic and social growth in the way they had been two hundred years earlier. Henry disliked the power of the Church in England because, since it was an international organisation, he could not completely control it. If Henry had been powerful enough in Europe to influence the pope it might have been different The power of the Catholic Church in England could therefore work against his own authority, and the taxes paid to the Church reduced his own income. In 1510 Henry had married Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur. - But by 1526 she had still not had a son who survived infancy and was now unlikely to do so. Henry tried to persuade the pope to allow him to divorce Carherine. - The pope was controlled by Charles V, who was Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, and also Carherine\'s nephew. For both political and family reasons he wanted Henry to stay married to Carherine. The pope did not wish to anger either Charles or Henry, but eventually he was forced to do as Charles V wanted. He forbade Henry's divorce. In 1531 Henry persuaded the bishops to make him head of the Church in England, and this became law after Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534. It was a popular decision. Henry was now free to divorce Carherine and marry his new love, Anne Boleyn. He hoped Anne would give him a son to follow him on the throne. Henry\'s break with Rome was purely political. He had simply wanted to control the Church and to keep its wealth in his own kingdom. He did not approve of the new ideas of Reformation Protestantism introduced by Martin Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Geneva. He still believed in the Catholic faith. - Through several Acts of Parliament between 1532 and 1536, England became politically a Protestant country, even though the popular religion was still Catholic. Once England had accepted the separation from Rome Henry took the English Reformation a step further. Wolsey's place as the king's chief minister was taken by one of his assistants, Thomas Cromwell. Between 1536 and 1539 they closed 560 monasteries and other religious houses. Henry did this in order to make money, but he also wanted to be popular with the rising classes of landowners and merchants. Henry proved that his break with Rome was neither a religious nor a diplomatic disaster. He remained loyal to Catholic religious teaching and executed Protestants who refused to accept it. Henry died in 1547, leaving behind his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, and his three children. Mary, the eldest, was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon. Elizabeth was the daughter of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, whom he had executed because she was unfaithful. **[The Protestant -- Catholic struggle\ ]**Edward VI, Henry VIII\'s son, was only a child when he became king, so the country was ruled by a council. All the members of this council were from the new nobility create d by the Tudors. They were keen Protestant reformers because they had benefited from the sale of monastery lands. Most English people still believed in the old Catholic religion. Less than half the English were Protestant by belief, but these people were allowed to take a lead in religious matters. - In 1552 a new prayer book was introduced to make sure that all churches followed the new Protestant religion. Mary, the Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon, became queen when Edward, aged sixteen, died in 1553. Mary was unwise and unbending in her policy and her beliefs. She was the first queen of England since Matilda, 400 years earlier. At that time women were considered to be inferior to men. The marriage of a queen was therefore a difficult matter. If Mary married an Englishman she would be under the control of a man of lesser importance. If she married a foreigner, it might place England under foreign control. Elizabeth, Mary\'s half-sister, was lucky to become queen when Mary died in 1558.\ -\> Mary had considered killing her, because she was an obvious leader for Protestant revolt. Elizabeth had been wise enough to say nothing, do nothing, and to express neither Catholic nor Protestant views while Mary lived. When she became queen in 1558, Elizabeth I wanted to find a peaceful answer to the problems of the English Reformation. She wanted to bring together again those parts of English society which were in religious disagreement. - In some ways the kind of Protestantism finally agreed in 1559 remained closer to the Catholic religion than to other Protestant groups. But Elizabeth made sure that the Church was still under her authority, unlike politically dangerous forms of Protestantism in Europe. The struggle between Catholics and Protestants continued to endanger Elizabeth\'s position for the next thirty years. Both France and Spain were Catholic. Elizabeth and her advisers wanted to avoid open quarrels with both of them. This was not easy, because both the French and Spanish kings wanted to marry Elizabeth and so join England to their own country. When Elizabeth finally agreed to Marv\'s execution in 1587, it was partly because Mary had named Philip as her heir to the throne of England, and because with this claim Philip of Spain had decided to invade England. By 1585 most English people believed that to be a Catholic was to be an enemy of England. This hatred of everything Catholic became an important political force**.** **Chapter 11:** **[The new foreign policy ]** During the Tudor period, from 1485 until 1603, English foreign policy changed several times. But by the end of the period England had established some basic principles. Henry VII had been careful to remain friendly with neighbouring countries. His son, Henry VIII, had been more ambitious, hoping to play an important part in European politics. (he was unsuccessful) Mary allied England to Spain by her marriage. This was not only unpopular but was politically unwise: England had nothing to gain from being allied to a more powerful country. Elizabeth\'s foreign policy carried Henry VII\'s work much further. encouraging merchant expansion. She correctly recognised Spain as her main trade rival and enemy. English ships had already been attacking Spanish ships as they returned from America loaded with silver and gold. This had been going on since about 1570, and was the result of Spain\'s refusal to allow England to trade freely with Spanish American colonies. Philip decided to conquer England in 1587 because he believed this had to be done before he would be able to defeat the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands. **[The new trading empire\ ]**The first English colonists sailed to America towards the end of the century. One of the best known was Sir Waiter Raleigh, who brought tobacco back to England. The settlers tried without success to start profitable colonies in Virginia, which was named after Elizabeth, the \"virgin\" or unmarried queen. By 1650 slavery had become an important trade, bringing wealth particularly to Bristol in southwest England. It took until the end of the eighteenth century for this trade to be ended**.\ ** **[Wales]** Henry VII was half Welsh. At the battle of Bosworth in 1485 Henry\'s flag was the red dragon of Wales. Arthur, Prince of Wales, died early and Henry\'s second son became Henry VIII. But he did not share his father\'s love of Wales. His interest was in power and authority, through direct control. He wanted the Welsh to become English. One example of the changes Henry VIII made was in the matter of names. At that time the Welsh did not have family names. They used their own first name with those of their father and grandfather, using *ap,* which meant \"son of\". From 1535 the English put pressure on the Welsh to use an English system of names by preventing Welsh names being used in law courts and on official papers. By 1750 the use of Welsh names had almost disappeared, although not before one Welshman had made a final and humorous protest. Between 1536 and 1543 Wales became joined to England under one administration. English law was now the only law for Wales. English became the only official language, and Welsh was soon only spoken in the hills. Although Welsh was not allowed as an official language, Henry VIII gave permission for a Welsh Bible to be printed, which became the basis on which the Welsh language **survived.** **[Ireland ]** Henry VIII wanted to bring Ireland under his authority, as he had done with Wales. Earlier kings had allowed the powerful Angle-Irish noble families to rule, but Henry destroyed their power. When an Anglo- Irish noble rebelled against Henry VIII, he did so in the name of Catholicism. Henry VIII failed to get what he wanted in Ireland. In fact he made things worse by bringing Irish nationalism and Catholicism together against English rule. In 1580, during Elizabeth l\'s reign, many Irish rebelled, encouraged by the arrival of a few Spanish and French soldiers. The Tudors fought four wars during the period to make the Irish accept their authority and their religion. In the end they destroyed the old Gaelic way of life and introduced English government.\ Ireland became England\'s first important colony. **[Scotland and England ]** The Scottish monarchs tried to introduce the same kind of centralised monarchy that the Tudors had so successfully developed in England. But it was much harder, because the Scottish economy was weaker, and Scottish society more lawless. The Scottish kings usually avoided war with England. They made a peace treaty with Henry VII, the first with an English king since 1328, and James IV married Henry\'s daughter Margaret. But Henry VIII still wanted Scotland to accept his authority. In 1513 his army destroyed the Scottish army at Flodden. The battle of Flodden increased the disagreement between those Scottish nobles who felt that Scotland should move towards a closer friendship with England and those who wanted to remain loyal to the Auld Alliance with France. The Scottish monarch had to find a balance between these two, to keep both his nobles and his neighbours happy. The Protestant Reformation in Europe, and particularly in England, also increased the uncertainty and danger. **[Mary Queen of Scots and the Scottish Reformation ]** Mary was troubled by bad luck and wrong decisions. She returned to Scotland as both queen and widow in 1561. She was Catholic, but during her time in France Scotland had become officially and popularly Protestant. The new religion brought Scotland closer to England than France. Scots were careful not to give the monarch authority over the new Protestant Scottish \"Kirk\", as the Church in Scotland was called. This was possible because the Reformation took place while the queen, Mary, was not in Scotland, and unable to interfere. The Kirk taught the importance of personal belief and the study of the Bible, and this led quickly to the idea that education was important for everyone **in** Scotland. As a result most Scots remained better educated than other Europeans, including the English, until the end of the nineteenth century. **[A Scottish king for England]** Mary\'s son, James VI, started to rule at the age of twelve in 1578. He showed great skill from an early age. He knew that if he behaved correctly he could expect to inherit the English throne after Elizabeth\'s death, as he was her closest relative. James VI is remembered as a weak man and a bad decision-maker. But this was not true while he was king only in Scotland. Early in his reign, in the last years of the sixteenth century, he rebuilt the authority of the Scottish Crown after the disasters which had happened to his mother, grandfather and great-grandfather. He brought the Catholic and Protestant nobles and also the Kirk more or less under royal control. Jarnes VI\'s greatest success was in gaining the English throne when Elizabeth died in 1603 at the unusually old age of 70. **Chapter 13:** **[Parliament against the Crown ]** The first signs of trouble between Crown and Parliament came in 1601, when the Commons were angry over Elizabeth\'s policy of selling monopolies. James was clever and well educated. As a child in Scotland he had been kidnapped by groups of nobles and had been forced to give in to the Kirk. Because of these experiences he had developed strong beliefs and opinions. - Laws could only be made by Act of Parliament. **1215 CE: Magna Carta** Magna Carta was issued in June 1215 and was the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government was not above the law. It sought to prevent the king from exploiting his power, and placed limits of royal authority by establishing law as a power in itself. James was successful in ruling without Parliament between 1611 and 1621, but it was only possible because Britain remained at peace. James could not afford the cost of an army. - In 1618, at the beginning of the Thirty Years War in Europe, Parliament wished to go to war against the Catholics. James would not agree. Until his death in 1625 James was always quarrelling with Parliament over money and over its desire to play a part in his foreign policy. Charles I found himself quarreling even more bitterly with the Commons than his father had done, mainly over money. Charles\'s need for money, however, forced him to recall Parliament, but each time he did so, he quarreled with it. When he tried raising money without Parliament, by borrowing from merchants, bankers and land-owning gentry, Parliament decided to make Charles agree to certain \"parliamentary right". These rights, known as the Petition of Right, established an important rule of government by Parliament, because the king had now agreed that Parliament controlled both state money, the \"national budget\", and the law. Charles surprised everyone by being able to rule successfully without Parliament. He got rid of much dishonesty that had begun in the Tudor period and continued during his father\'s reign. By 1637 he was at the height of his power. His authority seemed to be more completely accepted than the authority of an English king had been for centuries. **[Religious disagreement ]** In 1637, however, Charles began to make serious mistakes. These resulted from the religious situation in Britain. His father, James, had been pleased that the Anglican Church had bishops. They willingly supported him as head of the English Church. And he disliked the Presbyterian Kirk in Sco tland because it had no bishops. It was a more democratic institution, and this gave political as well as religious powerto the literate classes in Scotland. They had given him a difficult time before he became king of England in 1603. - There were also people in England, known as Puritans, who, like the Scottish Presbyterians, wanted a democratic Church. Queen Elizabeth had been careful to prevent them from gaining power in the Anglican Church. She even executed a few of them for printing books against the bishops. Charles shared his father's dislike of Puritans. He had married a French Catholic, and the marriage was unpopular in Protestant Britain. Anti-Catholic feeling had been increased by an event over thirty years earlier, in 1605. In spring 1638 Charles faced a rebel Scottish army. Without the help of Parliament, he was only able to put together an inexperienced army. It marched north and found that the Scots had crossed the border. Charles knew his army was unlikely to win against the Scots. **[Civil war]** Events in Scotland made Charles depend on Parliament, but events in Ireland resulted in civil war. James I had continued Elizabeth's policy and had colonized Ulster, the northern part of Ireland, mainly with farmers from the Scottish Lowlands. The Catholic Irish were sent off the land, and even those who had worked for Protestant settlers were now replaced by Protestant workers form Scotland and England. In 1641, at a moment when Charles badly needed a period of quiet, Ireland exploded in rebellion against the Protestant English and Scottish settlers. London locked its gates against the kin g, and Charles moved to Nottingham, where he gathered an army to defeat those MPs who opposed him. - The Civil War had started. Most people, both in the country and in the towns, did not wish to be on one side or the other. In fact, no more than 10 per cent of the population became involved. But most of the House of Lords and a few from the Commons supported Charles. The Royalists, known as \"Cavaliers\", controlled most of the north and west. But Parliament controlled East Anglia and the southeast, including London. Its army at first consisted of armed groups of London apprentices. **Chapter 14:** **[Republican Britain ]** Several MPs had commanded the Parliamentarian army. Of these, the strongest was an East Anglian gentleman farmer named Oliver Cromwell. He had created a new \"model\" army, the first regular force from which the British army of today developed. Cromwell and his advisers had captured the king in 1645, but they did not know what to do with him. This was an entirely new situation in English history. Charles himself continued to encourage rebellion against Parliament even after he had surrendered and had been imprisoned. By this time most people in both House of Parliament and probably in the country wanted the king back. They feared the Parliamentarians and they feared the dangerous were determined to get rid of the king. These men were Puritans who believed they could build God's kingdom in England. - On 31 January 1649 King Charles was executed. It was a cold day and he wore two shirts so that the crowd who came to watch would not see him shiver and think him frightened. From 1649- 1660 Britain was a republic, but the republic was not a success. Cromwell and his friends created a government far more severe than Charles\'s had been. They had got rid of the monarchy, and they now got rid of the House of Lords and the Anglican Church. Cromwell took an army to Ireland to punish the Irish for the killing of Protestants in **1641**, and for the continued Royalist rebellion there. The army remained the most powerful force in the land. Disagreements between the army and Parliament resulted in Parliament\'s dissolution in 1653. It was the behaviour of the army and the dissolution of Parliament that destroyed Cromwell\'s hopes. From 1653 Britain was governed by Cromwell alone. He became \"Lord Protector\", with far greater powers than King Charles had had. Cromwell\'s government was unpopular for other reasons. For example, people were forbidden to celebrate Christmas and Easter, or to play games on a Sunday. When Cromwell died in 1658, the Protectorate, as his republican administration was called, collapsed. Richard Cromwell was not a good leader and the army commanders soon started to quarrel among themselves. One of these decided to act. In 1660 he marched to London, arranged for free elections and invited Charles II to return to his kingdom. The republic was over. When Charles II returned to England as the publicly accepted king, the laws and Acts of Cromwell\'s government were automatically cancelled. **[Catholicism, the Crown and the new constitutional monarchy ]** Charles hoped to make peace between the different religious groups. He wanted to allow Puritans and Catholics who disliked the Anglican Church to meet freely. But Parliament was strongly Anglican, and would not allow this. Charles himself was attracted to the Catholic Church. Parliament knew this and was always afraid that Charles would become a Catholic. For this reason, Parliament passed the Test Act in 1673, which prevented any Catholic from holding public office One of these parties was a group of MPs who became known as \"Whigs\", a rude name for cattle drivers. The Whigs were afraid of an absolute monarchy, and of the Catholic faith with which they connected it. They also wanted to have no regular or \"standing\" army. In spite of their fear of a Catholic king, the Whigs believed strongly in allowing religious freedom. The Whigs were not against the Crown, but they believed that its authority depended upon the consent of Parliament. As natural inheritors of the \"Parliamentarian\" values of twenty years earlier, they felt tolerant towards the new Protestant sects which the Anglican Church so disliked. James II became king after his brother\'s death in 1685. The Tories and Anglicans were delighted, but not for long. James had already shown his dislike of Protestants while he had been Charles\'s governor in Scotland. James then tried to remove the laws which stopped Catholics from taking positions in government and Parliament. He also tried to bring back the Catholic Church, and allow it to exist beside the Anglican Church. Like the Civil War of 1642, the Glorious Revolution, as the political results of the events of 1688 were called, was completely unplanned and unprepared for. - Parliament was now beyond question more powerful than the king, and would remain so. Its power over the monarch was written into the Bill of Rights in 1689. In 1701 Parliament finally passed the Act of Settlement, to make sure only a Protestant could inherit the crown. It stated that if Mary had no children the crown would pass to her sister Anne. If she also died without children, it would go to a granddaughter of James I, who had married the German elector of Hanover, and her children. **[Scotland and Ireland ]** Neither Scotland, nor Ireland accepted the English removal of lames peacefully. In Scotland supporters of the Stuarts rebelled, but although they successfully defeated a government army, their rebellion ended after the death of their leader. Scotland was still a separate kingdom, although it shared a king with England (James II had been lames VII of Scotland). The English wanted Scotland and England to be united. But the English Act of Settlement was not law in Scotland. In 1707 the union of Scotland and England was completed by Act of Parliament. From that moment both countries no longer had separate parliaments, and a new parliament of Great Britain, the new name of the state, met for the first time. Scotland, however, kept its own separate legal and judicial system, and its own separate Church. King William landed in Ireland in 1690, and defeated James\'s army at the River Boyne. James left Ireland for France a few days later, and never returned to any of his kingdoms. **[Foreign relations ]** During the seventeenth century Britain\'s main enemies were Spain, Holland and France. War with Holland resulted from competition in trade. After three wars in the middle of the century, when Britain had achieved the trade position it wanted, peace was agreed, and Holland and Britain cooperated against France. At the end of the century Britain went to war against France. This was partly because William of Orange brought Britain into the Dutch struggle with the French. By the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 France accepted limits on its expansion, as well as a political settlement for Europe. It accepted Queen Anne instead of James II\'s son as the true monarch of Britain. During this time Britain also established its first trading settlements in India, on both the west and east coasts. The East India Company did not interfere in Indian politics. Its interest was only in trade. A hundred years later, however, competition with France resulted in direct efforts to control Indian politics, either by alliance or by the conquest of Indian princely states. **Chapter 16:** Well before the end of the eighteenth-century Britain was as powerful as France. This resulted from the growth of its industries and from the wealth of its large new trading empire, part of which had been captured from the French. Britain now had the strongest navy in the world; the navy-controlled Britain\'s own trade routes and endangered those of its enemies. It was the deliberate policy of the government to create this trading empire, and to protect it with a strong navy. - Power now belonged to the groups from which the ministers came, and their supporters in Parliament. The invention of machinery destroyed the old \"cottage industries\" and created factories. The development of industry led to the sudden growth of cities like Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool and other centres in the north Midlands. In France the misery of the poor and the power of the trading classes led to revolution in 1789. The British government was afraid of dangerous revolutionary ideas spreading from France to the discontented in Britain. In fact, Britain ended the century fighting against the great French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, and eventually defeating him. Revolution was still a possibility, but Britain was saved partly by the high level of local control of the ruling class in the countryside and partly by Methodism, a new religious movement which offered hope and self-respect to the new proletariat. **[Politics and finance]** When Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts, died in 1714, it was not entirely certain that the Protestant ruler of Hanover, George, would become king. James ll\'s son to return to Britain as James III. If he had given up Catholicism and accepted the Anglican religion, he probably would have been crowned James III. In 1715 he started a rebellion against George I, who had by this time arrived from Hanover. But the rebellion was a disaster, and George\'s army had little difficulty in defeating the English and Scottish \"Jacobites\", as Stuart supporters were known. Because of the Tory connection with the Jacobites, King George allowed the Whigs to form his government. At the end of the seventeenth century the government had been forced to borrow money in order to pay for the war with France. In 1694, a group of financiers who lent to the government decided to establish a bank, and the government agreed to borrow from it alone. The new bank, called the Bank of England, had authority to raise money by printing \"bank notes\". For hundreds of years bankers and money dealers had been able to give people \"promisory notes\" signed by thems

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