A long and illustrious history Flashcards
Early Britain
Stone age
- hunters gatherers
- connected to the continent until 10,000 years ago
- first farmers from south-east Europe 6,000 years ago
- Stonehenge in the English county of Wiltshire
- probably a gathering place for seasonal ceremonies
- other stone age sites: Skara Brae in Orkney (Scotland) - best preserved prehistoric village in nortwest Europe
Bronze age
- 4,000 years ago
- made objects in brozne and gold (tools, ornaments, weapons)
Iron age
- made tools and weapons from iron
- hill fort in Maiden Castle, Dorset, England
- farmers, craft workers or warriors
- spoken language was part of Celtic family of languages
- first coins to be minted in Britain, some inscribed with the names of iron age kings
Romans
- Julius Cesar leads invasion on Britain in 55 BC, unsuccessful, Britain separate from Roman Empire for 100 years
- Emperor Claudius leads invasion in 43 AD and successful to occupy most of Britain
- Boudicca, queen of Iceni - one of tribal leaders that fought in the invasion, her monument is on the Westminster Bridge
- areas of Scotland were never conquered by Romans and Emperor Hadrian built a wall in northern England to keep away Picts, part of Hadrian’s wall is still visible including some forts e.g. Housesteads and Vindolanda and it is a UNESCO world heritage site
- Romans remain in Britain for 400 years - roads, public buildings, structure of law, new plants and animals
- 3rd and 4th centuries AD first Christians began to appear in Britain
Anglo-Saxons
- Roman army left Britain in 410 AD and never returned
- Britain was invaded by tribes from northern Europe - Jutes, Angles and Saxons
- languages they spoke are the basis of modern day English
- by 600 AD Anglo-Saxons kingdoms were established in Britain (mainly in England)
- Sutton Hoo in Suffolk - burial place of one of the Anglo-Saxon kings, buried with treasure and armour in a ship and covered by a mound of earth
- most of Wales and Scotland were free from Anglo-Saxon rule
- Anglo-Saxons were not Christians when they came to Britain but during this period missionaries begun to arrive to preach about Christianity
- St Patrick (patron saint of Ireland)
- St Columba (founded monastery on the island of Iona, off the coast of current Scotland)
- St Augustine (led missionaries from Rome and became first archbishop of Canterbury)
Vikings
- Vikings came to Britain from Denmark, Sweden and Norway
- first arrived in 789 AD to raid coastal towns and take away goods and slaves, then started forming their own communities in the east of England and Scotland
- Anglo-Saxons in England united under King Alfred the Great and defeated them
- many Viking invaders stayed in Britain in north and east of England in Danelaw (many places e.g. Grimsby, Scunthorpe have Viking names)
- Anglo-Saxons continued to rule England except short period of time when there were Danish kings , the first one was Cnut (Canute)
- In the north the threat of attack from Viking has united people under one king Kenneth MacAlpin and the name Scotland began to be used to describe that country
The Norman Conquest
- William Duke of Normandy (France) invaded England in 1066 and defeated Harold the Saxon king of England in the battle of Hastings
- William became king of England - known as William the Conqueror
- the battle of Hastings is commemorated on a big piece of tapestry known as the Bayeux Tapestry (can still be seen in France)
- the Norman Conquest was last successful foreign invasion of England
- initially the Normans also conquered Wales but the Welsh gradually took the territory back
- the Scots and Normans fought on the border between Scotland and England, the Normans took some territory on the border but never invaded Scotland
- William send people all over England to write up lists of towns and villages, people who lived there, who owned the land, animals they had - this was called Domesday book and gives a picture of what English society was like just after Norman Conquest
Middle Ages / War at home and abroad
- Middle ages span about 1000 years from end of Roman Empire in AD 476 until 1485
- The period after Norman Conquest was a time of almost constant war
At home
- English kings fought with Welsh, Scottish and Irish noblemen for control over their territories
- Wales - the English were able to establish their rule, in 1284 King Edward I of England introduced the statue of Ruddlan which annexed Wales to the crown of England. Huge castles including Conwy and Caernarvon were built to maintain this power. In 15th century Welsh rebellion was extinguished and English law and language were introduced
- In Scotland - less successful, in 1314 the Scottish led by Robert the Bruce defeated the English in the Battle of Bannockburn and Scotland remained free
- In Ireland - Ireland was independent at the beginning of Middle Ages, the English first went there as troops to help Irish king but remained there and built there own settlements. By 1200 the English rules the area of Pale around Dublin and some of the important lord of other areas of Ireland accepted the authority of English king
Abroad
- many knights took part in the Crusades, in which European Christians fought for control over the Holy Land
- long war with France, called the Hundred Years War, one of the most famous battles was Battle of Agincourt in 1415 where King Henry V’s wastly outnumbered army defeated the French. The English largely left France in 1450s
Middle Ages / The Black Death
Feudalism
- Normans used a system of land ownership called the feudalism
- the king gave land to his lords in return for help in war
- lords had to send a certain number of his man to serve in the war
- some pheasants had land but most were serfs, they had a small area of the owner’s land where they could grow their own food, in return they had to work for their lord and could not move away
- the same system developed in southern Scotland
- in northern Scotland and Ireland the land was owned by ‘clans’ (important families)
The Black Death
- in 1348 Black Death came to UK
- 1/3 of the population of England, Wales and Scotland died
- smaller population meant there was less need to grow cereal crops
- there were labour shortages and pheasants began to demand higher wages
- new social classes appeared including owners of large areas of land later known and ‘gentry’
- people left the countryside to live in towns
- in towns the growing wealth led to development of strong middle class
- in Ireland many people in Pale died and for some time the area controlled by the English became smaller
Middle Ages / Legal and political changes
Carta Magna
- in 1215 King John was forced by his nobleman to agree to a number of demands, the result was a charter was rights known as Carta Magna
- king became subject to the law
- it protected the rights of nobility
- it reduced king’s power to introduce taxes or make or change laws
- in the future the king had to involve his nobleman in making decisions
Formation of parliament
- Parliament started to develop into the institution it is today which can be traced back to king’s council of advisors which included important nobleman and leaders of church
- king had to call for parliaments to consult his nobleman especially when he wanted to raise money
- the numbers attending parliaments increase and it divided into to groups called Houses - House of Lords (nobility, great landowners and bishops) and House of Commons (knights and wealthy people from towns and cities)
- only a small part of population was allowed to join in electing the members of House of Commons
- similar parliament developed in Scotland - it had three houses called Estates - the lords, the commons and the clergy
Law
- the principle that judges are independent from the governments was established
- in England judges developed a common law by a process of ‘precedence’ (following previous decisions) and tradition
- in Scotland law was ‘codified’ (written down)
Middle Ages / A distinct identity
A distinct national culture and identity developed in Middle Ages.
Language
- after the Norman Conquest, the royalty and nobility spoke Norman French and pheasants continued speaking Anglo-Saxon
- a modern English emerged as a combination of those two languages
- some words in English (like ‘park’ and ‘beauty’) come from Norman French and some (like ‘apple’, ‘cow’ and ‘summer’) come from Anglo-Saxon
- there is also a lot of words with similar meanings eg ‘demand’ comes from Norman French and ‘ask’ comes from Anglo-Saxons
- by 1400 official documents were being written in English and English became the preferred language of royal court and parliament
Canterbury Tales
- written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the years leading up to 1400
- series of poems in English about people going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury
- people decided to tell each stories as they travel and the poems describe the people and some of their stories
- one of the first books to be printed by William Caxton, the first person in Britain to be using printing press
Scots language
- in Scotland many people continued speaking Gaelic and Scots language also developed
- number of poets began to write in Scots language eg John Barbour who wrote The Bruce about a Battle of Bonnockburn
Architecture
- castle in Britain in Ireland eg Windsor and Edinburgh
- great cathedrals eg Lincoln Catherdral
- many cathedrals had stained glass windows telling stories from Bible and about saints eg York Minster cathedral stained glass
Trading
- Britain was important trading nation during Middle Ages
- British wool was important export
- people came to Britain from abroad to trade and work
- many of those people brought valuable skills eg. weavers from France, engineers from Germany, glass manufacturers from Italy and canal builders from Holland
Middle Ages / The Wars of The Roses
A civil war between House of York and House of Lancaster began in 1455 to decide who should be the king of England
- symbol of Lancaster - red rose
- symbol of York - white rose
- battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 - king Richard III of house of York was killed and Henry Tudor from House of Lancaster became king Henry VII
- Henry then married king Richard’s niece, Elisabeth of York to unite the two families
- the symbol of House of Tudor is red rose with white rose in the middle to symbolise the union
The Tudors and Stuarts / Religious conflicts, Henry VIII and his children
Centralising the power
- after coming to power Henry VII wanted to make sure that England remained peaceful so he worked on centralising the power, strengthening the royalty and limiting the power of the nobles
- his son Henry VIII continued this work
Henry VIII
- most famous from breaking away from church and marrying 6 times
The wives of Henry VIII
- Catherine of Aragon - Spanish princess, she had a number of children but only one survived, Mary, so when she was too old to have another child he divorced her
- Anne Boleyn - English, they had one daughter, Elisabeth. Anne Boleyn was unpopular in the country and accused of taking lovers and she was executed at the Tower of London
- Jane Seymour - finally had the son, Edward, but she died shortly after giving birth
- Anne Cleves - German, married for political reasons but divorced soon after
- Catherine Howard - cousin of Anne Boleyn, also accused of taking lovers and executed
- Catherine Parr - she was a widow and married him late in his life, she succeeded him and married again but does soon after
Church of England
- to divorce his first wife, Henry VIII needed the approval of Pope
- when Pope refused to give approval Henry VIII decided to establish Church of England
- in this new church the king and not the Pope had power to appoint bishops and decide how people should worship
Reformation
- movement against the authority of pope and ideas and practices of roman catholic church
- protestants formed their own churches, read the bible in their own languages instead of latin, didn’t pray to saints or at shrines, believed that person’s own relationship with God is more important that submitting to the authority of church
- protestants gained strength in England, Scotland and Wales in the 16th century
- in Ireland protestantism was opposed by Irish chieftains and led to brutal fighting
Wales unite with England
- during the reign of VIII Wales became officially united with England by the Act for the Government of Wales
- Welsh started sending representatives to the House of Commons and Welsh legal system was reformed
Edward VII
- Henry VIII was succeeded by his son Edward VI
- strongly protestant
- during his reign the Book of Common Prayer was written to be used by Church of England
