History of the United Kingdom

The History of Britain, as presented in this article, is an account of some of the happenings that have contributed to the creation of the country now known as Britain.

Introduction
The main body of this article traces some of the developments that influenced the evolution of the British constitution and the welfare of its people. It does so mainly by reviewing the broad outcomes of sequences of events, often without giving any attention to individual events. The timelines subpage takes a different approach by listing those events that are conventionally considered most influential. Readers who want to examine individual events in more detail are invited to make use of the links on that subpage as well as those on the present page. Unless otherwise indicated, the sources that are drawn upon are the series of volumes published under the collective title The Oxford History of England, and the volume entitled The History Today Companion to British History, which are listed on the bibliography subpage.

Prehistory
The oldest human remains that have been found in Britain have been carbon-dated as being up to 10,000 years old, and the DNA of a skeleton found in a Cheddar cave has been found to be a close match of a modern dweller in the same area. Since the separation of Britain from the continental landmass did not occur until about  6000 BCE , it would be wrong to refer to "Cheddar Man" as British, but the survival of his DNA, despite the subsequent intrusions of conquerors and migrants has been cited in defence of the relevance of ancient  history to current affairs.

The main evidence of prehistoric communal activity  concerns the "Beaker People" of the 2nd and 3rd centuries BCE - named after their distinctive ware pottery. The Beaker People kept livestock and cultivated flax and cereals,  used woven fabrics and practiced archery. The wide diffusion of the pottery discoveries suggests that they were a mobile and energetic people, and their grave goods indicate fairly extensive trading activities. . However, the scores of megaliths that are to be found scattered   throughout Britain and Ireland provide the  most visible evidence of  the achievements of  that period. The evidence of Stonehenge suggests that some of the inhabitants were accomplished  civil engineers, and that some had acquired some knowledge of astronomy. The technology that they used is not known - although Bernard Cornwell has provided a plausible fictional account of how they might have solved the problem ,

The Celts (c. 600 BC-49 AD)
The history of Celtic people in Britain is limited by a lack of textual evidence about the period, but it is clear from the archeological evidence that they, too were far from primitive. "Ogham inscriptions" on surviving stone artifacts prove that they used an alphabetic language that modern linguists have been able to decipher, and historians tend to conclude that a Celtic aversion to textual recording must have been the reason for the lack of other textual evidence. The Celts are known to have been migrants from Northern Europe because of their common cultural characteristics, including related languages and similar artifacts. They were all users of metal ploughs and various forms of wheeled transport. Despite the existence of those common cultural characteristics, there is no evidence to suggest that there was any coordination of their activities, or that any Celt thought of himself as a member of any organisation larger than his own tribe . However, the two dozen or so tribes that settled in Britain and Ireland have been categorised into two linguistic groupings - the "Goidelic" group including Irish, Manx and Scottish; and the "Brythonic" group including Breton, Welsh and Cornish - or, more precisely, those were the languages into which they gradually evolved. All of those languages have survived of have been revived, and they constitute one category of the modern legacy from the Celtic migration. (The various modern "Celtic Revival" organisations also lay claim to a range of cultural legacies, some of which, such as "Celtic Music" consist of developments occurring long after Celtic Britain gave way to Roman Britain).

The Romans (49-410)
The period of over a thousand years of Celtic domination was succeeded in parts of Britain by a very different period of about four hundred years of  Roman occupation. Whereas the people known collectively as Celts consisted of a large number of independent or loosely-associated tribes that occasionally coalesced into somewhat larger groupings, the Romans who invaded Britain were a closely coordinated, centrally-managed occupation force. Whereas the Celtic contribution had been largely genetic and cultural, the Roman contribution was largely technological and political. Although the culture of Rome and ancient Greece was to have a profound influence upon British culture, that did not happen as a result of the Roman occupation. Its major contributions at the time were the result of the occupiers' skills in political administration and civil engineering. The inhabitants of those parts of Britain that came completely under Roman control gained the benefits of living in a province of the Roman empire. Those gains included the establishment and enforcement of a legal system, access to Greek and Roman culture, and the  building in stone of  villas, towns and roads. All freeborn Britons became  Roman citizens, and there was eventually no meaningful distinction between being British and being Roman.

The practice of Christianity in the Roman Empire was a capital offence until the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, but the martyrdom of St Albans is evidence that it was nevertheless practised in Britain. The recorded attendance of British bishops at the Council of Arles in 314 CE suggests the previous existence of a form of Christian church among the local population, and the adoption of Christianity as the Roman state religion in 391CE must have helped it to spread.

Where there was not complete Roman control, Celtic society survived and developed along different lines. The Romans did not invade Ireland, they abandoned their early attempts to control what is now Scotland, and they achieved only partial control of England north of the river Trent. In Ireland, in particular there was unbroken development, up to the eleventh century invasions of the Vikings and the Normans, and to some extent beyond those events. In Ireland and in Scotland there was a progressive transition from a fragmented tribal structure into larger groupings that were eventual to lead to integrated national political structures.


 * ( more detailed accounts of developments in Ireland and Scotland are available in the articles Ireland, history and Scotland, history)

The Saxons (410-c. 800)
After the sudden departure of the Romans, England lost nearly all traces of Roman culture. In the course of the following two centuries there was a major decline in the numbers able to read Latin,  villas, towns and roads were - with only a few exceptions - allowed to decay, and all stone-working skills were lost. Military and politically control passed eventually to  the relatively uncultured Saxons,  who first came to England as hired mercenaries and later stayed as conquerors. Total conquest was not immediate, however, but was delayed by successful resistance under Ambrosius and Arthur, as a result of which a decaying form of Roman culture survived in parts of England for nearly two hundred years.

It is not known whether the British/Roman Christians attempted to convert the Saxon invaders after the end of the Roman occupation (the historian Bede said that they did not, but his impartiality has been questioned .). However, it seems safe to assume that Christian churches survived in the regions of Wales and Cornwall that the invaders did not reach, although their existence may have been unknown to the church officials in Rome. The most significant development, however was the establishment of Christianity in Ireland, and the establishment of monasteries there, where they became centres of learning. Missionaries from the Irish monasteries later carried their religious beliefs and their learning to communities in Scotland and Northern England and played a part in the conversion of the English Saxons to Christianity. That process was completed by the mission of Saint Augustine from Rome and the adoption of the Vatican's doctrines by the Saxon Christians.

The Vikings (c. 800-1066)
There followed a period of about two hundred years during which the name "England" was first adopted, and England was first united under a single ruler. It was also a period during which substantial numbers of Scandinavian settlers were added to the mainly Saxon population, and during which Christianity eventually became the officially established religion. A major part in those transitions was played by the "Vikings" who were raiders from a variety of Scandinavian countries, and "Danes", who were settlers from a similar source who were supported by substantial military forces. At the beginning of the period, the invaders were bands of savage pagan marauders, and by its end - when they finally assumed control - they were civilised, mainly  Christian, members of an established Scandinavian empire.

The earliest Viking attacks were upon the Irish ports of Dublin and Waterford, which became Viikung settlements, from which the Vikings took part in Irish power-struggles. The invasions ceased with the Viking defeat by High King Brian Boru in 1014, after which they remained as Irish subjects.

Among the Saxon natives of England, the dominant figure in the first half of the period was Alfred, King of Wessex. It was he who united the country's local leaders in combined resistance to the invaders, and who became England's first king. Alfred combined the qualities of scholar, educator, law-maker, administrator, military strategist and Christian leader. He gave England its first code of law, its first navy and its first well-organised army. His military successes enabled him to negotiate a partition of the country with the Danish leader, Guthrum, and to recapture London.

After Alfred's death, his successors continued to gain territory from the Danes but in 1890 they counter-attacked in force, reconquered South East England and eventually the whole country. The dominant figure during that period was Canute, who ruled over an empire that included England, Jutland, Norway, Iceland and Greenland. Danish reign over England ended with his death in 1041.

The Normans (1066-1154)
Following the Norman invasion of England, the Normans revolutionised the governance of England mainly by adapting and extending existing institutions. Voluntary agreements under which land tenure was awarded in return for an oath of service to a lord were developed by the Normans into a hierarchical system of compulsory military service , under which the majority of people became serfs, or "villeins", each obliged to serve a lord , who, in turn, was obliged to serve the King by paying taxes and occasionally helping to raise an army. The taxation system was adapted by the introduction of a land tenure basis using survey information recorded in the Domesday book, and by the introduction of systematic enforcement. Edward the Confessor's code of common law was extended by the use of what was to develop into the grand jury system. The concept of the King's peace was extended from its original reference to the protection of the king's house to cover the whole country and symbolised the adoption of crime prevention as a component of government policy. Progress in the development of governance was disrupted by the anarchy resulting from armed combat between claimants to the throne, but was resumed after the agreed succession to the throne by Henry Plantagenet.

Wales was divided into a border region known as "the Welsh Marches" which was under the control of   barons who had taken separate oaths of  allegiance to King, and a self-governing area which was  under the control of native Welsh princes. Although it was nominally part of the kingdom of England, Wales did  not become subject to English law and it was able largely to preserve a separate culture and language for several centuries after the Norman invasion.

A volatile relationship developed between Scotland and England. The English position that Scotland had become a part of the Kingdom of England as a result of the Treaty of Abernethy was often a matter of contention between them, but  various members of the Scottish royal family attended the English royal court and became familiar with  Norman culture and governance. As a result, a Norman-style feudal system was set up in Scotland and Norman noblemen were invited to become part of it. There followed three centuries during which raids, invasions and battles (known as Scotland's Wars of Independence), were interspersed with periods of peaceful trade and the interchange of culture and population.

The Plantagenets (1154-1485)
Neither the futile and immensely damaging "100 Years War" over the succession to the throne of France, nor the disruptive but relatively trivial "Wars of the Roses" over the succession to the English throne, had any significant effect in themselves upon the subsequent course of English history, but there were other developments that did. Principal among them were the changes to the constitution and to the mobility of labour, and the conquest of Ireland.

The system of serfdom under which peasants were forbidden to leave the villages of their parents' birth came gradually to an end in the course of Plantagenet period, not as a result of promises to abolish it to the rioters of the "Peasants Revolt", nor by any subsequent legislation, but under pressure from popular demand and the disruptions to the labour force caused by the enormous population loss during the "Black Death"

Limited but significant steps toward the creation of a system of representative government were taken during the 13th century. The Magna Carta set up an independent assembly  - later to be termed a "parliament" - that purported to serve the interests of the country, with powers of control over the conduct of government,, and its initial membership of 25 barons was broadened by Simon de Monfort's Provisions of Oxford, by the constitution of the "Model Parliament" during the reign of Edward I, and subsequently by the 1429 Franchise Act which restricted voting in elections to freeholders of land worth more than 40 shillings. By the end of the Plantagenet era, the system had acquired the power to propose legislation and had divided into two houses, with the House of Commons assuming control over taxation.

The Magna Carta also contained a statement of civil rights which is held to be the founding principle of the English legal system, and to be one of the precursors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

English governance was strongly influenced by the Church, and its Canon Law enforced by the imposition of burning at the stake as a punishment for heresy. Expressions of dissent by William of Occam and John Wycliffe had little influence, but a small underground movement of dissenters known as the "Lollards" somehow survived their designation as heretics.

The conquest of Ireland, that had started with an expedition organised by an English baron in collaboration with an exiled Irish king, was acknowledged by the submission of the Irish kings to the lordship of Henry II, and was given further formal expression when Prince John, Lord of Ireland, was designated King of England.

There continued to be a volatile and often hostile relationship between England and Scotland, aggravated by Scotland's "Auld Alliance " with France.

The Tudors (1485-1605)
England under the Tudors experienced major changes to its constitution, to the prosperity of its people, and to their outlook. The Tudor era completed its conversion from a collection of self-sufficient local communities into a nation with a well-established system of governance. There was a renewed growth in population and a  substantial  increase in both prosperity and poverty. There was also an upheaval of belief, intellectual enquiry and exploration, including a transition from the dominance of  Roman Catholicism to the acceptance  of other creeds and the transition from exclusively  deductive modes of reasoning to the acceptance of the  inductive method - as well as the undertaking of numerous voyages of discovery. Finally there was an increase in the importance of relations with its neighbours, and a number of attempts were made to incorporate Ireland, Scotland and Wales into a united British kingdom.

The status of Parliament was increased under the Tudors. The foundations for a limited system of representative government had been laid during the Plantagenet period and, in England at least, government under the Tudors came to be widely accepted as an instrument devoted mainly to the creation and preservation of social order. Tudor monarchs often made ruthless use of their power to rule by proclamation, but were nevertheless inclined to make use of parliament in support of claims to rule by consent and, although parliaments were mainly compliant, there was significant growth in the influence of the House of Commons over the creation and endorsement of legislation. The administration of law, although formally a royal prerogative, became the province of professional lawyers, exercising a significant degree of independence from the crown, and the practice of petitioning the king to remedy injustice developed into the legal system of "equity" , operating alongside, and sometimes in conflict with the rapidly development system of common law. Access to the law, which was traditionally confined to freemen, expanded rapidly with the disappearance of serfdom.

There was also substantial growth of the population and of the country's prosperity. Nearly all of the population was engaged in subsistence agriculture and cottage industry, but there were signs of the growing influence of small-scale industry and commerce. The principal manufactured products were textiles which were mostly the result of household activities, but there was also a growing output of  other extracted or manufactured   products such as coal and iron. . On the commercial side, there were several companies of merchants who were promoting exports of English textiles to Europe and sponsoring voyages of exploration and the creation of settlements in America, and there were several joint stock companies financing those activities. The growing prosperity for some that was attributable to those activities was accompanied for others by unemployment and abject poverty. Their suffering has been attributed to bad harvests, land enclosures the dissolution of the monasteries and the ending of the paternalist protection afforded by the feudal system. The early Tudor reaction to the resulting roving bands of indigent "vagabonds", was "poor law" legislation for their restraint and punishment, but it changed  towards the end of the period to the introduction of a national system of limited support for the "deserving poor". Notwithstanding the growth of the English economy under the Tudors, the corresponding increase in the welfare of its inhabitants is also considered to have been limited by the inflation attributed mainly to the debasement of the currency under Henry VIII.

The adoption of inductive methods of enquiry during the Tudor era provided the intellectual foundation for later scientific advances. The departure that took place from the hitherto exclusive employment of deduction from accepted axioms as a method of intellectual inquiry, was promoted in England by Francis Bacon - thought to have been inspired by the work of his Italian contemporary, Galileo - and subsequently set out in his tract on "The Advancement of Learning". Bacon's fantasy The New Atlantis contained an account of an imaginary institution that is said to have inspired the later creation of the Royal Society.

The break with Rome was probably the greatest upheaval of the Tudor era, and it was certainly a major cause of dissension for centuries to come. It caused demonstrations of mass protest at the time and was adamantly opposed by influential figures such as Thomas More, but was brought about with the assent of parliament and without sustained opposition in the country. Acceptance of the rejection of allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church and the adoption of Anglicanism as the country's official religion has been attributed partly to the accessibility of the bible to the ordinary people and   a revival among them of the Lollard movement, partly to  an anti-clerical climate of opinion arising from a surge of protest against corrupt Church practices led by Martin Luther,  partly to a nationalist aversion to interference by foreigners, and partly to the skillful presentation of his case  by Henry VIII's spin-doctors.

England's foreign policy also underwent major changes. Whereas, before the break with Rome, Henry VIII was an enthusiastic supporter of the Pope and an ally of Spain in their campaigns against France, after the break with Rome, it was the  opposition of the Pope and the military threat from  Spain that dominated  policy thinking. There was also a major change in relations with Scotland. A Scottish policy of helping France by frontier raids brought it  defeats so drastic as to prompt the suspension of the "Auld Alliance", and the subsequent rapprochment with England was facilitated by Scotland's break with Rome and by family relationships between the English and Scottish royal families. Towards the end of the Tudor era, successful negotiations between Elizabeth I of England and James VI of Scotland created an atmosphere  of widespread acceptance of the prospect of union between the two countries. No such atmosphere was created in Ireland. English governance was limited a relatively small area, outside of which the country was united only to the extent of a shared resentment of English incursions. The English establishment developed no consistent Irish policy beyond the achievement of pacification of a hostile population to an extent sufficient to prevent the use of Ireland by the Catholic governments of Spain and France as a base for a military action against Protestant England.

The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment

The Scottish Enlightenment

The Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution

The inter-war years
Irish War of Independence

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Prime Minister David Lloyd George led a coalition of Liberals and conservatives into the 1918 election. His letter endorsing coalition candidates was referred to as a coupon by Herbert Asquith, hence the term coupon election. This was the first election since 1910 and the first in which women had the vote. The major issues of the coalition programme where; a) to try the German Kaiser. b) To make Germany pay a large war indemnity. c) To create a country 'fit for heroes' who had returned from the war. These policies were popular and Georges's reputation as 'the man who won the war' ensured that the coalition won by a wide margin. The election results were notable for the Sinn Féin success in Ireland, the rise of Labour with 59 seats as the main opposition and the beginning of the disintegration of the once mighty Liberal Party, whose supporters flocked to both the Conservatives and Labour in years to come.

In the early years of the new government a number of measures were passed which added to George's reputation as a social reformer. The Fisher Education Act (1918) abolished child labour. The Housing Act (1919) led to over 200,000 houses being built and the Insurance Act (1921) extended insurance to all workers suffering from illness or those unemployed. However the government was beset by a number of problems which led to George's resignation.

Four million men demobilised by the end of 1921. As women were not allowed to retain the jobs they had worked in during the war and because of the subsequent economic boom, most men were absorbed into industry. Yet many of these veterans were restless and yearned for a better life. This 'class conscioussness' led directly to the General Strikes of 1925 and the struggle for social reform within the nation.

Slump
In the summer of 1920 the boom turned to a slump. Unemployment was becoming a problem and by 1921 reached two million. Cutbacks in the budget ensured around £100 million was taken from housing, education and social services. The slump in turn led to industrial unrest, especially in the coalfields. The Miner's federation voted to strike in support of its demands of nationalisation of the mines, which they assumed would produce higher wages and less managerial control. Eventually they went on strike after a wage cut and called for sympathy from railwaymen and transport workers. When this support was later withdrawn the Unions were defeated.

These problems were gradually making George less popular. The existence of the "Lloyd George Fund" added a taint of corruption to the mix. Without a political party or funds he sought to amass by private means funds to ensure his political future. This in turn led to the trading of honours for donations. Conservative bankbenchers were angry over the Anglo-Irish Treaty and awaited the opportunity to oust George. This came with the Chanak Crisis of 1922. A refusal by the Turks to accept the terms of the Treaty of Sévres led to George issuing an ultimatum before negotiations could begin. Angered by his responsibility for bringing the country to the brink of war, the Conservatives demanded an end to the postwar coalition. When they withdrew their support George resigned. Although he remained as leader of the Liberals from 1926 to 1931, he would never again hold political office.

Second World War
The powers of the central government increased dramatically. New departments were set up for a wide range of areas such as food, shipping and information. The Emergency Powers Acts of 1939 and 1940 gave the government wide powers of arrest. These were rarely used, and even Sir Oswald Mosley, Britain's leading fascist, was released from jail in 1943. -->