History

Prehistory
Two thousand years ago there was an Iron Age Celtic culture throughout the north-west
European islands. For people in Britain today, the chief significance of the prehistoric period
is its sense of mystery. Wiltshire, in southwestern England, has two spectacular examples:
Silbury Hill, the largest burial mound in Europe, and Stonehenge. Such places have a special
importance for some people with inclinations towards mysticism and esoteric religion.
The Roman period
The Roman province of Britannia covered most of present-day England and Wales, where the
Romans imposed their own way of life and culture, making use of the existing Celtic
aristocracy to govern and encouraging them to adopt Roman dress and the Latin language.
division of the Celts into those who experienced Roman rule (the Britons in England and
Wales) and those who did not (the Gaels in Ireland and Scotland) may help to explain the
emergence of two distinct branches of the Celtic group of languages. To many other parts of
Europe they bequeathed a system of law and administration which forms the basis of the
modern system and a language which developed into the modern Romance family of
languages. In Britain, they left nothing. Almost the only lasting reminders of their presence
are place names like Chester, Lancaster and Gloucester, which include variants of the Latin
word castra (a military camp).
The Roman general Julius Caesar lands in Britain with an expeditionary force, wins a battle
and leaves. The first ‘date’ in popular British history. 55BC

The Romans come to stay. AD43

Queen Boudicca (or Boadicea) of the Iceni tribe leads a bloody revolt against the Roman
Occupation. 61
The Germanic invasions
During the fifth century, a number of tribes from the European mainland invaded and settled
in large numbers. Two of these tribes were the Angles and the Saxons. In the west, their
advance was temporarily halted by an army of (Celtic) Britons under the command of the
legendary King Arthur. Nevertheless, by the end of the sixth century, they and theirway o f
life predominated in nearly all of present-day England. Celtic culture and language survived
only in present-day Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. When they came to Britain, the Anglo-
Saxons were pagan. During the sixth and seventh centuries, Christianity spread throughout
Britain from two different directions. Although Roman Christianity eventually took over
everywhere, the Celtic model persisted in Scotland and Ireland for several hundred years.
Britain experienced another wave of Germanic invasions in the eighth century. These
invaders, known as Vikings, Norsemen or Danes, came from Scandinavia. In the ninth
century they conquered and settled the islands around Scotland and some coastal regions of
Ireland. Their conquest of England was halted when they were defeated by King Alfred of the
Saxon kingdom of Wessex However, the cultural differences between Anglo-Saxons and
Danes were comparatively small. They led roughly the same way of life and spoke different
varieties of the same Germanic tongue. Moreover, the Danes soon converted to Christianity.
These similarities made political unification easier, and by the end of the tenth century,
England was a united kingdom with a Germanic culture throughout.

The Romans leave Britain. 410

St. Patrick converts Ireland to Christianity. 432

St. Augustine arrives in Britain and establishes his headquarters at Canterbury. 597
The great monastery of Lindisfarne on the east coast of Britain is destroyed by Vikings and
its monks killed. 793
The Peace o f Edingtonpartitions the Germanic terrtories between King Alfred’s Saxons and
the Danes. 878
Edgar, a grandson of Alfred, becomes king of nearly ail of present-day England and for the
first time the name ‘ England1 is used. 973
The medieval period
The successful Norman invasion of England (1066) brought Britain into the mainstream of
western European culture. Throughout this period, the English kings also owned land on the
continent and were often at war with the French kings. Unlike the Germanic invasions, the
Norman invasion was small-scale. A strict feudal system was imposed. Great nobles, or
barons, were responsible directly to the king; lesser lords, each owning a village, were
directly responsible to a baron. Under them were the peasants, tied by a strict system o f
mutual duties and obligations to the local lord, and forbidden to travel without his permission.
The peasants were the English-speaking Saxons. The lords and the barons were the French-
speaking Normans. This was the start of the English class system. By the end of the thirteenth
century,a large part of eastern Ireland was controlled by Anglo-Norman lords in the name of
their king and the whole of Wales was under his direct rule (at which time, the custom of
naming the monarch's eldest son the 'Prince of Wales’ began). By the end of this period, a
cultural split had developed between the lowlands, where the way of life and language was
similar to that in England, and the highlands, where Gaelic culture and language prevailed -
and where, due to the mountainous terrain, the authority of the Scottish king was hard to
enforce.

The Battle of Hastings. 1066

King William`s officials complete the Domesday Book, a very detailed, village-by-village
record of the people and their possessions throughout his kingdom. 1086
The murder of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, by soldiers of King Henry
II.1170

The Norman baron known as Strongbow and his followers settle in Ireland 1171
An alliance of aristocracy, church and merchants force King john to agree to the Magna Carta
(Latin meaning ‘Great Charter’), a document in which the king agrees to follow certain rules
of government. 1215

Llewellyn, a Welsh prince, refuses to submit to the authority of the English monarch. 1275
The Statute o f Wales puts the whole of that country under the control of the English
monarch. 1284
The Model Parliament sets the pattern for the future by including elected representatives from
urban and rural areas. 1295
After several years of war between the Scottish and English kingdoms, Scotland is
recognized as an independent kingdom. 1328
The sixteenth century
In its first outbreak in the middle of the fourteenth century, bubonic plague (known in
England as the Black Death) killed about a third o f the population of Great Britain. It
periodically reappeared for another 300 years. At a higher level of feudal structure, the power
of the great barons was greatly weakened by in-fighting (The Wars of the Roses. The nobles
were divided into two groups, one supporting the House of Lancaster, whose symbol was a
red rose, the other the House of York, whose symbol was a white rose.)
At the same time, increasing European exploration of the Americas meant that England was
closer to the geographical centre of western civilization instead of being, as previously, on the
edge of it. Shakespeare began writing his famous plays, giving voice to the modern form of
English. It was therefore patriotism as much as religious conviction that had caused
Protestantism to become the majority religion in England by the end of the century. It took a
form known as Anglicanism, not so very different from Catholicism in its organization and
ritual.
The Act of Supremacy declares Henry VIII to be the supreme head of the church in England.
1534
The administration of government and law in Wales is reformed so that it is exactly the same
as it is in England.1536
An English language version of the Bible replaces Latin bibles in every church in the land.
1538
The Scottish parliament abolishes the authority of the Pope and forbids the Latin mass. 1560

Sir Francis Drake completes the first voyage round the world by an Englishman. 1580

Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII, was the first of three long-reigning queens in British
history (the other two are Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II).
The Spanish Armada. A fleet of ships sent by the Catholic King Philip of Spain to help
invade England, is defeated by the English navy (with the help of a violent storm!). 1588

James VI of Scotland becomes James I of England as well. 1603

The Gunpowder Plot. A group of Catholics fail in their attempt to blow up the king in
Parliament. 1605
The seventeenth century
When James I became the first English king of the Stuart dynasty, he was already James VI
of Scotland, so that the crowns of these two countries were united. The kind of Middle
English spoken in lowland Scotland had developed into a written language known as ‘Scots’.
However, the Scottish Protestant church adopted English rather than Scots bibles. In the
seventeenth century, the link between religion and politics became intense. In addition,
ideological Protestantism, especially Puritanism, had grown in England. Puritans regarded the
luxurious lifestyle of the king and his followers as immoral. They were also anti-Catholic
and suspicious of the apparent sympathy towards Catholicism of the Stuart monarchs. This
conflict led to the Civil War, which endedwith complete victory for the parliamentary forces.

The Civil War begins. 1642

Charles I is executed. 1649

The Restoration of the monarchy and the time, Britain briefly becomes a republic Anglican
religion. 1660

The Great Fire of London destroys most of the city’s old wooden buildings 1666

The Glorious Revolution. 1688

The Presbyterian Church becomes the official ‘Church of Scotland’. 1690

The eighteenth century
Politically, the eighteenth century was stable. Monarch and Parliament got on quite well
together. One reason for this was that the monarch’s favourite politicians, through the royal
power of patronage were able to control the election and voting habits of a large number of
MPs in the House of Commons. Within Parliament, the bitter divisions of the previous
century were echoed in the formation of two vaguely opposed, loose collections of allies. One
group, the Whigs, were the political ‘descendants’ of the parliamentarians. They supported
the Protestant values of hard work and thrift, were sympathetic to dissenters and believed in
government by monarch and aristocracy together. The other group, the Tories, had a greater
respect for the idea o f the monarchy and the importance o f the Anglican Church (and
sometimes even a little sympathy for Catholics and the Stuarts). This was the beginning of
the party system in Britain. It was cultural change that was most marked in this century.
Britain gradually acquired an empire in the Americas, along the west African coast and in
India. The greatly increased trade that this allowed was one factor which led to the Industrial
Revolution. Other factors were the many technical innovations in manufacture and transport.
Millions moved from rural areas into new towns and cities. Most of these were in the north of
England, where the raw materials for industry were available. In this way, the north, which
had previously been economically backward, became the industrial heartland of the country.
In the south of England, London came to dominate, not as an industrial centre, but as a
business and trading centre.

The Act of Union is passed. 1707

The last occasion on which a British monarch refuses to accept a bill passed by Parliament.
1708
At the battle of Culloden, a government army of English and lowland Scots defeat the
highland army of Charles Edward, who, as grandson of the last Stuart king, claimed the
British throne. 1746
The English writer Samuel Johnson coins the famous phrase, ‘When a man is tired o f
London, he is tired of life’. 1763
For the first time, Parliament allows written records of its debates to be published freely.
1771
James Watt invents the first steam engine. 1782

After a war, Britain loses the southern half of its North American colonies.1783

The first British settlers arrive in Australia. 1788

The separate Irish parliament is closed and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
is formed. 1800
A British fleet under the command of Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats Napoleon’s French
fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar. 1805

Robert Peel, a government minister, organizes the first modern police Force. 1829
The nineteenth century
At the start of the century, Britain was locked in a war with France, during which an invasion
of the country was a real possibility. Soon after the end of the century, it controlled the
biggest empire the world had ever seen. One section of this empire was Ireland. During this
century, it was in fact part of the UK itself, and it was during this century that British culture
and way of life came to predominate in Ireland. In the 1840s, the potato crop failed two years
in a row and there was a terrible famine. Millions of peasants, those with Gaelic language and
customs, either died or emigrated. By the end of the century, almost the whole of the
remaining population had switched to English as their first language. Another part of the
empire was made up of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, where British settlers had
become the majority population. Another was India, an enormous country with a culture
more ancient than Britain’s. As well as these areas, the empire included numerous smaller
areas and islands. Some, such as those in the Caribbean, were the result of earlier British
settlemen. During the century, Britain became the world’s foremost economic power. This,
together with long years of political stability unequalled anywhere else in Europe, gave the
British a sense of supreme confidence, even arrogance, about their culture and civilization.
the real power in the country Along with their power went a set of values which emphasized
hard work, thrift, religious abservance, the family, an awareness of one’s duty, absolute
honesty in public life, and extreme respectability in sexual matters. This is the set of values
which are now called Victorian.
Slavery and the laws against people on the basis of religion were abolished, and laws were
made to protect workers from some o f the worst excesses of the industrial mode o f
production. Public services such as the post and the police were begun. Many, especially the
Romantic poets, praised the beauties of the countryside and the virtues of country life.
The first law regulating factory working conditions limits the number of hours that children
are allowed to work. 1833

The TUC (Trades Union Congress) is formed. 1868

After much debate, an atheist is allowed to sit in the House of Commons. 1886

The first socialist, Keir Hardie, is elected to Parliament. 1893

Nationwide selective secondary education is introduced. 1902

The first old-age pensions are introduced. 1908

The power of the House of Lords is severely reduced and sick pay for most workers is
introduced. 1911

Great Britain declares war on Germany. 1914

The ‘ Easter Rising’ in Ireland. 1916

The right to vote is extended to women. 1918

Partition of Ireland. 1920

Treaty between Britain and the Irish parliament in Dublin. 1921

General Strike. 1926

The right to vote is extended again. All adults can now vote. 1928

Britain declares war on Germany. 1939

The Beveridge report is published, which leads to the eventual creation of the NHS. 1942

Free compulsory education (up to the age of 15) is established. 1944

The National Health Service is established. 1946

Ireland becomes a Republic. 1949

The twentieth century

Around the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain ceased to be the world’s richest
country. The Suffragettes, women demanding the right to vote, were prepared to damage
property and even die for their beliefs; some sections of the army appeared ready to disobey
the government over its policies concerning Ulster in Ireland. The British empire reached its
greatest extent in 1919. By this time, however, it was already becoming less o f an empire
and more of a confederation. At the same international conference at which Britain acquired
new possessions under the Treaty of Versailles, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South
Africa were all represented separately from Britain. A couple of years later, Britain lost most
of its oldest colony. The real dismantling o f the empire took place in the 25 years following
the Second World War.
At the end of the century, in 1997, Britain handed Hong Kong back to China, thus losing its
last imperial possession of any significant size.
It was from the start of the twentieth century that the urban working class (the majority of the
population) finally began to make its voice heard. In Parliament, the Labour party gradually
replaced the Liberals (the 'descendants of the Whigs) as the main opposition to the
Conservatives (the 'descendants’ of the Tories).

Coronation of Elizabeth II. 1953

The Clean Air Act is the first law of widespread application to attempt to control pollution.
1958
The first motorway is opened. 1959

The school leaving age is raised to 16. 1963

The ‘age o f majority’ is reduced from 21 to 18. 1968

British troops are sent to Northern Ireland. 1969

Decimal currency is introduced. 1971

Britain joins the European Economic Community. 1973

The Fal klands/Malvinas War. 1982

British Telecom is privatized. 1984

First Gulf War. 1990

The channel tunnel opens. 1994

The hereditary element in the House of Lords is severely restricted. 1999

Second Gulf War. 2003

British troops leave Northern Ireland. 2007