INTRODUCERE N ISTORIA I CIVILIZAIA BRITANIC

Asist. univ. drd. Oana GODEANU Semestrul II

Obiective Familiarizarea studenilor cu elemente de istorie i cultur britanic, ce stau la baza nelegerii poporului englez i a limbii engleze, care faciliteaz cunoaterea literaturii engleze care faciliteaz cunoaterea literaturii engleze i care. n general sunt absolut necesare unui specialist n limba i literatura englez; prelegerile vor aborda teme majore, cu semnificaii deosebite pentru istoria li civilizaia englez.

GREAT BRITAIN PHYSICAL FEATURES Great Britains full political title is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The archipelago is constituted of England, Scotland and Wales, forming the largest island known officially as Great Britain. The second island, Ireland, is shared between the UK and The Republic of Ireland.The rest of the islands Anglesey, the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Hebrides, the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly are also included in the British administration. The Channel Islands off the French coast have a special position, and so does the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. They are not part of the UK, although they are members of the Commonwealth. They have nevertheless the status of selfgoverning Crown Dependencies but the British government is still responsible for their defence and international relations. More precisely, Britains geographical position is marked by 0 longitude passing through Greenwich, the international time measure by latitude 50 N passing through the Lizard peninsula in the South West and by 60 N latitude, across the Shetland islands. Despite its relatively small and compact size, if compared with other European countries, Britain possesses a richly varied landscape. Its physical area amounts to about 244,100 km, 95% of which is land. Englands surface is 129.634 km, Wales 20, 637 km, Scotlands 77,179 km and Northern Irelands 13,438 km. For millions of years Britain was part of the European mainland but, after the last Ice Age, when apparently the glaciers melted suddenly, the sea level rose, separating Britain from Europe through the English channel in the South, and the
153

North Sea in the North. Nowadays, in the South, only 32 km of water the Straits of Dover separate England from continental Europe. Questions: 1. Give possible explanations for the concentration of population in South East England. 2. Find on the map other important European countries situated at about the same latitude as England. Explain the differences between Englands climate and their type of climate. 3. Name the capitals of the following regions: Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Wales and England. PREHISTORY In prehistoric times the British Isles were inhabited by a population about which very few things are known today. Since the monuments it left behind are similar to those discovered in Malta or Spain, it was assumed this civilization was of Mediterranean origin. Except for various fossils and objects dated 250.000 BC, when apparently the island was not separated from the mainland, the most important prehistoric monuments belong to the megalithic period ( about 3000 BC) Near Avebury, in the Wiltshire county we find, inside the largest circle of cromlechs existing in Europe, a monument of cult built around 1800 BC, a genuine megalithic cathedral, over 500 stones form an ensemble of rings to which led immense alleys. A hundred meter farther an artificial hill is still visible today, whose dimensions and greatness make the viewer assume that the efforts deployed in its construction by a primitive people were at least equal to that of the Egyptians that built the Giseh monuments. But the most famous prehistoric monument, which has excited the popular imagination for centuries, is undoubtedly Stonehenge. In the West of England, in the midst of Salisbury Plain, standing is one of the most famous landmarks in the world: Stonehenge. Even in its current ruined state, the monument is undeniably impressive. Stonehenge has had a great deal of aggression associated with it, both in this century and before. Indeed, it seems likely that the monument was erected and maintained by a military and political elite who exercised authority over a large part of southern Britain in the late Neolithic period. As far as its purpose is concerned, as always in the case of other astronomically oriented monuments, such as those in Bolivia, Mexico, India or Egypt, the destination is still not very clear. Stonehenge appears to have functioned as either a temple or a sanctuary dedicated to the cult of the sun or of the moon, or even as an astronomical observatory. Another plausible assumption would be that Stonehenge played an important part in what used to be the Neolithic cult of the dead, an assumption supported by the existence of the numerous incineration tombs discovered around it. Apparently, it was constructed in several steps (between 1800-1400 BC) but just how it was built remains a mystery, if we take into consideration the primitive technology of the time and the fact that the stones it was made of came from over 385 km away, in Wales (Dyfed), from the Prescelly Mountains. The entire complex was built in different epochs, starting with 1900 BC, and going to 1400 BC. The Stonehenge monument has impressed many artists throughout the ages such as Turner or John Constable who, around 1835 immortalized it in a watercolor, or Thomas Hardy, in the setting of whose novel Tess of the dUrbervilles, the monument
154

plays a significant part; nowadays, every year on the day of the summer solstice, a traditional holiday takes place, that gathers not only inhabitants of Salisbury, but also foreign tourists who arrive there in order to watch the spectacular sunrise on the site, even if it has been fenced off from the public to prevent its destruction. Questions: 1. Which other prehistoric monuments are supposed to have been created in about the same period with Stonehenge? 2. Which is the role played by the monument in Thomas Hardys Tess of the dUrbervilles. What significance is attributed to it in this novel? 3. What is the difference between the Avebury henge and Stonehenge? 4. Can you give example of other prehistoric monuments built for religious reasons in other parts of the world? THE ROMAN CONQUEST As it possessed no unitary government or rule the territory of Britain did not raise any serious problems to invasions from across the Channel. It is only with the advent of the Normans that the isle became a difficult conquest. Before that, the physical characteristics of Britain made it an easy access through many havens and navigable rivers in the south. The temptations that determined various migratory groups and eventually the Romans themselves to take possession of the island included not only the tin, pearls, various metals, among which gold, but also its fertile soil as well as its mild climate, due to what we know today as the Gulf Stream, but which the early inhabitants found surprisingly balanced for a country situated so up north. After the conquest of the Gaul by the Romans, Britain seemed the following natural war objective. These mysterious islands seemed able to satisfy Caesars needs for victories and riches for his soldiers and partisans, but also his secret desires of astonishing Rome once more. Thus, the first Roman incursion in Britain took place in August 55 BC, when Caesar landed with two legions trying to conquer these unfamiliar lands. However, the operation did not end with a victory, but rather a bitter compromise. The following year, (54 BC), Caesar returned trying to complete his conquest, only to find the Britons prepared and organised, under the command of a local leader, Cassivellaunus, whose lands stretched north of the Thames; it was again Caesars diplomatic skill that helped him subjugate all the tribes mostly by deftly operating with the divide ut regnum formula. The hostilities ended by an agreement and Caesar established the tribute Britain was to pay to the Roman people. But after Caesars death, Britain fell into oblivion for almost a century and it is only under Claudius reign that various groups of interest began to consider these distant lands as a possible new source of glory and profit for the Empire. As a result, in 43 AD., Caesar sent to Britain an expedition formed of 4 legions, which landed in Britain and took over the lowlands of England and not without some difficulty over part of the Wales and Scotland, so that, at the beginning of the second century, England was entirely under Roman rule. Lifestyle The Roman strategy of colonization was the same everywhere: it involved building roads that would have allowed the legions to move more easily and more quickly into the occupied territories, as well as erecting fortified sites, for the fixed
155

garrisons to settle into. Most of the English towns today, whose names end in chester or cester, were, during the Roman occupation, military camps (castra). It is during this period that London Lundinium grew, since the Romans directed towards this town all the routes connecting the north and the south, equally using its harbour for the transportation of food and ammunition for the army. The town was surrounded by a wall with six gates, which was to delimit the boundaries of the town and which broadly corresponds to what is today known as the City; it was only after the 16th century that the first constructions outside the walls will be erected. At the same time with enforcing their military system throughout the country, the Romans also tried to re-create their style of life in the unfriendly climate of the new province, building temples, baths, forums and houses on the model of their dwellings in Rome. Soon the entire south of the country was scattered with Roman cottages, decorated with mural paintings and mosaics representing classical scenes, and with basilica, forums and baths. The assimilation of Roman ways in the ensemble of the customs of the local population was gradual and non-violent, since Roman colonization was not the expansion of a race, but rather that of a culture. The best known among the military constructions of this age is the defense wall built in the second century across the northern province of Britannia along nearly the same line that constitutes today the English- Scottish border; it was meant to protect the province from the attacks of the Scots and the Picts in the northern territories left outside Roman rule. Hadrians Wall represented the widest fortification system ever built by the Romans and stretched across about 118 km (74 miles) Religion The Celts adapted quite easily to the new lifestyle imposed by the Romans, especially because Roman politics respected the local institutions and did not exclude the assimilation in their own Pantheon of new unknown gods, so that no brutal colonization took place in the occupied territories. A great variety of religious cults were to be found so that in addition to numerous Celtic deities of local or wider significance, the gods of the classical pantheon were introduced and were often identified with their Celtic counterparts. Along with various other cults brought along by the Roman legions, starting with the third century Christianity entered Britain and at the beginning of the IV-th century the presence is mentioned of a certain Christian bishop named Restitutis, about whom it is known that he took part in the council of Arles, together with two other Briton bishops. The end of the Roman Rule in Britain After the beginning of the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was confronted with a threefold crisis: economic, religious and military. As for the military crisis, the capital change that was to mark warfare for at least 13 centuries forward, was the replacement of the supremacy of the pedestrian army by the cavalry. The invasions of the Goths, barbarians originating in the Russian fields, could no longer be stopped, as they were gradually advancing inside the Empire, threatening Pax Romana. Facing these threats at its continental frontiers, Rome had to call its legions from Britain in a desperate attempt at protecting the integrity of its continental territories. The year 410 marks the end of the four-century domination of Roman culture in Britain, as the last Roman soldiers leave the island abandoning the province now
156

vulnerable to the repeated incursions of the Northern Celtic tribes (the Picts in Scotland and the Scots in Ireland), as well as to those of the Germanic tribes coming from the sea. But the most amazing part in the story of the Roman domination over Britain is the fact that almost four centuries of cultural and military occupation left practically no traces in the British language and civilization. In Gaul present day France especially in the South, the Roman towns and monuments are still present, while the late Latin provided the grammatical and lexical foundation for modern French. But in English there hardly are any traces of the Latin influence in the language. Latin words in English came either as scientific neologisms assimilated at a later date, or French words going back to the Norman Conquest. Among the rare words that were introduced during the Roman occupation and that can still be found in modern English are street from strata via, mile the Roman mile, wall wallum and the ending chester (castra) However, when analysing the Roman legacy to British civilization, the most important element introduced at that time remains undoubtedly Christianity, which, despite the subsequent torments Britannia was to experience during the next two centuries that are commonly known as Englands dark ages continued its inexorable march in forming the spirituality of its inhabitants. Questions: 1. What are the similarities between the Roman conquest of Britain and the Roman conquest of Dacia? 2. Can you provide one possible explanation for the Roman religious tolerance? 3. Which was the role of Hadrian Wall? 4. Give examples of Latin words preserved in modern English and which were introduced during the Roman conquest. 5. Which were the reasons that caused the Roman Empire to withdraw its legions from Britain? THE SAXON INVASION After the departure of the last Roman legions, the invasions of the Picts and the Scots in the north intensified. In order to protect the isle a Briton leader, Vortigern, called the Saxons as mercenaries offering them territories in exchange for their services. But attracted by this rich, defenseless country, the German invaders refused to leave. According to Venerabilis Bedes Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (731) the first written chronicle of the English - the Jutes settled to Kent and in the Isle of Wight, the Angles settled in East Anglia founding the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. The Saxons were the most numerous and the historians identified three groups, according to their main directions of colonization, South, West and East, where they founded the kingdoms Sussex, Wessex and Essex. Some modern scholars consider the Anglo-Saxons as being substantially one people. At the time of their migration to Britain, Angles and Saxons were occupying parts of the coast of modern Denmark and Germany and the difference between them in language and customs was small. The Jutes were a smaller tribe, distinct from the Anglo-Saxons, apparently originating from Jutland, in northern Denmark. Part of the Celto-Roman population withdrew in the western highlands and in the south; the Saxon invaders called these refugees Welsh meaning foreigner, from the German word Welche. Another part of the Celto-Roman population crossed the Channel
157

on the European mainland, in the Gaulish territories and formed there present day Bretagne. The Saxon conquest was slow and painful. Apparently, the VI-th century king Arthur, or Artorius, the mythic leader that was to inspire generations of artists, won several victories against the invaders. But even back then the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes already had in their possession the wealthiest part of the country. Lifestyle The Saxons were country dwellers, so they settled in families or groups of families and the villages thus created were named after the family names. Thus Birmingham is the setting of the Beorms; also Billingham, or Buchingham originally indicated the name of their inhabitants. After the violent Saxon invasion, three were the elements that survived from the sophisticated Roman civilization which the arrival of the new tribes had replaced: These permanent legacies are: the traditional site of London, the Roman roads and Welsh Christianity. As far as London is concerned, if it is possible that, at some point during the Saxon invasion, it was abandoned, then was reestablished as a Saxon town Adam Bede ( 700 AD.) mentions its existence as an important trading centre. The Roman roads, another permanent reminder of the Roman rule greatly increased the speed of the Saxon, Danish and later on Norman Conquests, but also helped in unifying Britain in one state, by facilitating access to all its regions once a central government was established. The third and the most lasting Roman legacy was Welsh and Cornish Christianity, which was strengthened by the continual presence of missionaries, such as Saint Germanus. Religion The Nordic religion that the Saxons had brought along with them was not a religion of dread or of magic. It constituted the expression of racial character, not an outside force to work upon that character; moreover, it was not intolerant and this may be the reason why it had no defenses against the Christian attack. Christianity entered Britain from south and north at the same time, from Scotland and from Rome. Among 432-61 St Patrick converted Ireland while St. Columba did the same for Scotland starting with 563. Southern England was under the Christian influence of St Gregory and St Augustine. In 597, sent by Gregory the Great to convert the angles, St Augustine arrived in Britain. He converted Kent, founded the see of Canterbury, thus insuring solid bases for the subsequent spread of Roman Christianity over the island. All monastic and episcopal England was organized under a new hierarchy, by Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop from 669 to 690. He created a several Bishoprics with definite territorial sees all subject to Canterbury which became thus the spiritual capital of the region. The monasteries were also subjected to the general ecclesiastical system, continuing to grow in wealth and number, but preserving their strong affiliation to Canterbury. After Theodore, as a result of his preparation of the ground on episcopal lines, the parish system began to emerge, so that by the arrival of the Normans, most of the island was supplied with parish churches and parish priests. Questions 1. What was the basic hierarchical structure of the Saxon society? 2. Who converted the British Isles to Christian religion?
158

3. Find examples on the Map names of rivers or of towns ending in Saxon suffixes. In what regions can these be found? Why? THE NORMAN CONQUEST The Normans, or the Vikings, came from the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. During the 9th century the Gaullish territories present day France were invaded by the Normans several times, so that, starting with 950 Western Gaul will be called Northmannia or Terra Northmannorum. Gradually, the ancient Gallo-Roman language, culture and civilization were assimilated by the Normans who retained all the Viking energy in colonization and in war, but became converts to Latin culture. At 1066 the ducat of Normandy which had already conquered Bretagne and was in control of the county of Maine, in France, was not only the best managed feud in France, but also the most powerful military state in the Western World. The Normans were skilled warriors and their fighting techniques advanced warfare in many ways, notably in offensive and defensive strategy; it is they who introduce the longrange fighting technique through the use of archers. England was thus attacked by the most highly organized continental state of the day, which possessed institutions capable of rapid development in the newly conquered territory. Another important element that was to mark the Norman rule in England is the fact that the Church in Normandy was the ally of the Ducal power. Also, the Normans possessed a feature which the English lacked, namely the instinct for political unity and administrative consolidation. After the death of king Edward the Confessor (1066) the crown of England went to Harold II. But two years before, while he was only a count of Wessex, Harold had been shipwrecked on the French coast and taken prisoner and had promised William to help him obtain the crown of England. The same crown had been already promised to William by King Edward himself in 1051, during the visit of the former in England. Since, technically, he had been promised the crown of England twice, (in 1051 and in 1064), after Edwards death, when Harold occupied the throne, William felt betrayed and decided to take by force what was rightfully his. 1066 is the most famous date in English history, since the successful Norman invasion of the island brought Britain into the mainstream of Western European culture as, on 14 October an invading army from Normandy, under the leadership of William, landed on the British shore and defeated the English at Hastings. After Hastings, William headed for London. Frightened and left without an army, the nobility and the priests welcomed the conqueror at Berkhampstead, offering him the Crown. The importance of the battle of Hastings resides in the fact that after only 8 hours of fight the six centuries Anglo-Saxon domination in Britain ended. The Norman Conquest represents a landmark in the development of British feudalism, as well as in the establishing of a more refined class consciousness. Importance of the Norman Conquest The Political Importance The Norman Conquest introduced feudalism in Britain, thus connecting these territories to Continental Europe. Under the feudal system, men gave up personal freedom in exchange for protection and security. The King owned all the land except that owned by the church and he had the right to lease his land to nobles, who repaid him
159

in homage, taxes, and military service. As feudalism is essentially a hierarchically organized system, the nobles, in turn, leased land to lesser nobles, each of whom owed homage, etc., to the next above him on the social scale, the entire system ultimately resting on the serf or villain. As the Middle Ages progressed and the noblemen came to depend on men with special skills, there appeared the freeman, the commoner, and the yeoman, however, no middle class was recognized until the end of the Middle Ages. William imposed the French system of strictly territorial feudalism throughout the English territory, dividing every shire up into knights fees1 held by French-speaking knights from French speaking Barons and Prelates, who in their turn, held of the King; thus gradually the central royal power was gradually reinforced but at the same time a racial distinction between the French-speaking aristocracy and the English-speaking lower classes began to be felt. The arrival of the Norman conquerors represented a cultural clash at the level of the entire society. The differences in lifestyle and mentalities between the local nobility and Norman aristocracy are important and acceptance will be difficult. Since William I came to England as the lawful successor of the Saxon kings, he did not try to modify the local customs and institutions, but used them, where they served his purposes. Thus the Fyrd or mass recruitment first introduced under Alfreds reign, will become a valuable force as soon as the peasants were made consider themselves as allies of the crown against the oppressive nobility. The king also appointed as sheriffs his nobles for each shire, charging them with the collection of taxes. In 1085, at Gloucester he ordered the first detailed, village-by-village record of the people and their possessions, throughout his kingdom. Domesday Book also offered a strict evidence of the kings vassals owing him military services. William summoned them a year later, in august 1086, and has them swear loyalty to him at Salisbury, a diplomatic gesture meant to protect him from any possible acts of treason. After the Norman Conquest, in the Church, just as the French Barons and knights had replaced the Saxon nobility, so foreign clergy replaced native Englishmen in church positions. Some of these changes entailed a higher standard of learning and zeal; Church architecture bore the mark of these changes and four centuries of splendid ecclesiastical constructions followed as the Norman builders imported the new trends from the continent replacing the Saxon churches. But the most important ecclesiastical reform made by William was his division of the spiritual from the secular courts, which represented a significant step towards a higher legal civilization. Thus the Church as a spiritual body was subject to the Pope, but this new powers given to the king contributed to the limitation of the Papal power. The linguistic transformations Starting with Williams reign, French and English begin to be used concomitantly; thus, the upper classes, the Court, the noblemen and the judges spoke French, the Church representatives spoke both French and Latin and all the official documents were written in Latin and starting with the 13th century in French. However, the folk continued to speak English, so that, for almost 3 centuries English will be a language with no literature and no fixed grammar. Since the Norman Conquest did not represent a Norman colonization proper, but merely a process of immigration, it is only natural that the deep structures of
a heritable land held from a feudal lord in return for service; fief; feudal benefice 160
1

the Anglo-Saxon language should not be affected. It is the most permeable compartment of the language, the vocabulary, that was influenced by French. Thus, most borrowings concerned the language of administration, war, politics, religion, hunting, cooking, law, trade and, to a lesser extent, the language of culture. In those linguistic areas connected to the everyday life of the Anglo-Saxon peasant, those borrowings were scarce and also manifested through the existence of parallel, almost synonymous forms: ox, calf, swine the names of the animals grown by the Anglo-Saxon peasant, and mutton, veal, pork the meat of the same animals once arrived on the tables of the Norman noblemen. Education Between the 11th and the 13th centuries European Christendom is a spiritual empire in itself. The 12th and 13th centuries are the moment when the first European universities appear: Bologna, Pavia and Paris. The English built their first and oldest university at Oxford, in 1177. The status of the university was influenced by the University of Paris, with the difference that, if Paris was specialised in the liberal arts, Oxford curriculum was focused rather on Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music. Oxford became a strong university during Henry IIs reign when, during his dispute with Becket, Henry called back from Paris all English students and professors, trying to deprive Becket of any spiritual support in his country of exile. In 1209, following an act of injustice of the major of Oxford who had sentenced to death by hanging three innocent students accused of having killed a woman, many students and professors left Oxford and settled in Cambridge, establishing the rival institution. The first Scottish university was St Andrews, founded at the beginning of the 15h century. Universities played an important part in the political awakening of England, as they gathered together students coming from various provinces of the country, who learnt to find the common grounds for accepting their differences and founding their national consciousness. The Church was soon to realise the threat these young scholars represented to the very unity of faith. Questions: 1. What was the importance of the Norman Conquest? Why is 1066 considered the most important date in British history? 2. Which were the reasons that made William claim the British crown? 3. In what way was the development of English language influenced by the Norman Conquest? THE 100 YEARS WAR Causes England, due to its insular position and strong kings, had obtained a certain measure of internal peace and was passing from feudalism to nationhood. The Hundred Years War was mainly a matter of political and economic dynamics, only superficially justified by succession claims. One cause was the long-standing friction over Gascony, ever since 1294; by establishing that the kings of England owed homage to the kings of France for Gascony, the treaty had created an awkward relationship between the two European powers.
161

A second important cause of the English-French rivalry was represented by the Netherlands, which was dependent on English wool for industrial prosperity but some of whose states, including Flanders, were subject to French claims of suzeranity. English wool trade depended heavily on the Flemish manufacturers and French suzeranity over this territory would have affected the economic prosperity of the state. Finally, there was the matter of the French throne itself. Edward, through his mother, was closer in blood to the last ruler of the Capetian dynasty than was the Valois Philip VI. Its basic cause was a dynastic quarrel which started when the conquest of England by William of Normandy created a state lying on both sides of the English Channel. In the 14th century the English kings held the duchy of Guyanne in France; they resented paying homage to the French kings, and they feared the increasing control exerted by the French crown over its great feudal vassals. Thus, the immediate causes of the Hundred Years War were the dissatisfaction of Edward III of England with the nonfullfillment by Philip IV of France of his pledges to restore a part of Guyanne taken by Charles IV; the English attempts to control Flanders, an important market for English wool and a source of cloth; and Philips support of Scotland against England. The war began in 1337, when Edward III of England assumed the title of king of France, a title held by Philip VI. The initial phase of the war was inconclusive but soon the English were to register important successes. In 1356 the English won the battle of Poitiers, capturing King John II of France. Negotiations led to a truce at Brtigny, and in the subsequent negotiations Edward agreed to drop his claim to the French throne. In return, English possessions in France would be held in full sovereignty. The Gascon nobles, oppressively taxed by Edward III the Black Prince, appealed in 1369 to French King Charles V. The war was renewed, but, by 1373, the French troops had won back most of the lost French territory. In 1415, Henry V of England renewed the English claims, took Harfleur, and defeated Frances best knights at Agincourt. By 1419 he had subdued Normandy, with the help of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy. Philip the Good, successor of John the Fearless, mediated between Henry V and Charles VI of France, and Charles recognized Henry as heir to the crown of France. By 1429 the English were masters of practically all France North of the Loire, but in that year Joan of Arc raised the siege of Orlans and had Charles VII crowned king of France at Reims. Her capture by the Burgundians and her judicial murder after extradition to the British did not stop the French successes so that, by 1450 the French had re-conquered Normandy, and by 1451 all Guyanne was taken, except for Bordeaux. After the fall of Bordeaux in 1453, England retained only Calais, which was not conquered by France until 1558 and, internally torn by the Wars of the Roses, made no further attempt to conquer France. In return, English possessions in France were to be held in full sovereignty. The terms of the peace treaties, particularly those involving the exchange of territory, were not carried out in full, but neither side wished to reopen the war immediately. Consequences of the war The Hundred Years War brought along a strong national consciousness, more democratic than feudal. If in earlier medieval times hostility was normally directed towards the natives of neighboring towns or villages, in the time of the 100 years War the foreigner became the Frenchman or the Spaniard and the new patriotic feeling took the form of racial hatred for the French. In 1362, six years
162

after the battle of Poitiers, a statute was passed through Parliament declaring English as the language in which all pleadings and judgements in law courts should be held. Gradually English began being used in the schools thus becoming again the tongue of the educated and of the upper class. Moreover, as a result of the War, England ceased to be a continental power and increasingly sought expansion as a naval power, which was to dramatically influence its policy in the future. The War of the Roses The end of the campaigns in France brought back to England soldiers used to rich loots and still eager to fight. The conflicts among the nobility concentrated around the two leading families - the House of Lancaster, whose symbol was a red rose, and the House of York whose symbol was the white rose. It was a faction fight between the families allied to the royal house, contending for power and wealth and ultimately for the possession of the Crown. Each camp was constituted of a group of great nobles, with its own clientele of knights, gentry, lawyers or clergy. The parties engaged in a series of battles where the tactics used were those employed in the recent French war. The opposing factions first met in 1455 at St. Albansconsidered to be the first battle of the Wars of the Roses followed by a series of battles won by either the Yorkist or the Lancastrians and which continued for over 15 years. The conflict came to a halt in 1465, when, after a prolonged open conflict, Henry was captured and imprisoned into the Tower of London. He was restored to the throne for a brief period of time in 1470, but a year later Edward IV (of the House of York) regained London and recaptured him. After 12 relatively peaceful years, Edward IV was succeeded (1483) by his young son Edward V, but soon the boys uncle Richard, duke of Gloucester, usurped the throne as Richard III. Richards reign marks the end of the war of the Roses. Edward the IV had two sons, of which the eldest should have followed him on the throne. But his brother, Richard of Gloucester, had them murdered, after imprisoning them in the Tower of London, which stirred a general outcry from the population. Opposition to Richard worked in favor of Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, now the last offspring of the House of Lancaster and a refugee in Bretagne. On 22 August 1485, Henry landed from France, defeated and killed Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field, and ascended the throne as Henry VII. Henry VII the first of the House of Tudor married the next year Edward IVs daughter, Elizabeth, a marriage which united the houses of Lancaster and York. Except for various efforts during Henrys reign to place Yorkist pretenders on the throne, the Wars of the Roses were ended. Henry Tudors reign marks the end of the long medieval period and the beginning of English Renaissance. Education It is at the end of the 16th century that the first printed books appear. Printing was introduced in the isles by William Caxton who had studied the craft in Cologne and who set up his press in 1476, thus founding the first printing house at Westminster, and starting to publish English works for the growing reading public. The first great collections of family correspondence, those of the Pastons, Stonors, and Celys, survive from this period.
163

The monopoly of education was held by the Church, through its schools. At 14 a boy would be admitted to Trivium where he would study Latin, Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric for 3 years, after which he was granted the degree of baccalaures. He would then attend Quadrivium, where he would be initiated into Music, Arithmetic, Geometry and Astronomy and where, at the end of 4 years he would become magister. The 15th century, was an important age in the foundation of schools and colleges. Some schools were set up as adjuncts to chantries, some by guilds, and some by collegiate churches. Henry VI founded Eton College in 1440 and King's College, Cambridge, in 1441. Other colleges at Oxford and Cambridge were also founded in this period. Questions: 1. What were the main causes of the 100 Years War between England and France? 2. Which were the two parties fighting over supremacy in England during the War of the Roses? 3. What brought the end to the War of the Roses? THE AGE OF THE TUDORS English Renaissance The medieval system passed away due to the profound changes that the habits of the English people had undergone during the previous centuries: the rise of educated and active middle classes, the spread of trading activities outside the towns, the unifying effects of the Common Law, the royal administration and of Parliament, the national pride engendered by the Hundred Years and the establishment of English as the language of the educated and upper classes; of equal importance was the advent of the printing press, that undermined the churchs monopoly of learning and opened the written word to all those able to read it. All these changes, both spiritual and material, combined to gradually dissolve the medieval mores and patterns of thinking in England. Unlike France and Spain, where the new monarchies were allied with the old Church, in England the new monarchy was allied with Parliament. Tudor England preserved the old social structures, namely the orders, corporations and institutions, universities, nobles, clergy, on condition of submitting to the sovereign authority of the State. It is in the Tudor epoch that the nation asserted its new strength and expelling all foreign authorities claimed the right to do whatever it liked within its own frontiers. This idea of the complete independence for the nation and authoritarian power of the State were embodied in the person of the King, which constitutes an important cause of the King-worship of the Sixteenth century. European Renaissance started in Italy and from here the new studies came to Oxford in the last two decades of the 15th century, bringing in England concern for Greek and Latin literatures and thought. The rise of the printing press helped to the rapid rise of Erasmus to an European reputation. His work and that of Sir Thomas More gave a new moral and religious character to the Renaissance studies, instead of a merely artistic direction. In England, the men of the Renaissance, used the study of Greek and Latin to reform not only education and schools, but also the Church herself. The spirit of this movement was continued in the educational and religious policy of the Reformed Church of England that emerged under the later Tudors.
164

English Reformation Henry VIII (1509-1547) Henry VII's eldest son was Arthur, Prince of Wales. He married Catherine of Aragon, but died shortly after, leaving the throne to his younger brother Henry. History has not proved kind to the memory of Henry VIII. He is often remembered as the overbearing tyrant of his later years. In his youth, however, Henry was everything a king was thought to be. A natural athlete, a gifted musician and composer, Henry was erudite, religious, and a true leader among the monarchs of his day. As he had none of his father's talent for the routines of administration, Henry trusted the responsibility of administration to his advisor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. While the young sovereign enjoyed his inheritance, Thomas Wolsey collected titles archbishop of York in 1514, Lord Chancellor and cardinal legate. He exercised a degree of power never before wielded by king or minister, for, as Lord Chancellor and cardinal legate, he reunited the authority of church and state, anticipating the union his king was to achieve later on, exerting his royal authority over the souls and bodies of his subjects alike. Together, the king and cardinal plunged the kingdom into international politics and war and helped make England one of the centres of Renaissance learning and brilliance. Moreover, Henry VIII completed the work of his father, Henry VII, who had started the annexation of Wales, by including this territory into England on equal terms, in 1535. He also divided the whole land into 12 counties to be governed like English counties by the justices of the Peace, subject to the order of the Kings Council and the laws made in Parliament. This measure, alongside the sympathy with which the Celtic population regarded the House of Tudor, contributed to the establishment of the unity between Wales and England. The Break with Rome The prelude to Henrys breach with the Pope was the German Reformation under Martin Luther, movement which for several years almost annihilated the prestige of Rome as a centre of religious authority. The Lutheran doctrines were soon adopted in England, though still under the ban of the Church and of the State. The immediate cause of the breach with Rome that had been preparing in England for centuries, was not strictly speaking a divorce. Technically, it was a question whether or not Henry had ever been properly married to Catherine of Aragon. Henry had received a special dispensation from the pope in order to marry his brother's widow, Catherine. The only child of that marriage was a daughter, Mary. Henry desperately wanted a male heir, and as it gradually became obvious that Catherine would have no more children, Henry wanted a divorce. He sent his chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, to ask the pope for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine, but Wolsey failed and was deposed from office. Henry got Parliament to declare that his first marriage was void, and he secretly married Anne Boleyn, but the child proved to be female once again, the future Elisabeth I. His gesture represents the first attempt at repudiating a spiritual jurisdiction manipulated by outsiders to Englands direct interests. This revolution was anti-Papal, anti-clerical, Anglican, was launched suddenly and carried through despite the violence and injustices that followed.
165

Over the next several years Henry's dispute with the pope grew ever deeper, until in 1534 the Act of Supremacy was passed, making Henry, and not the pope, head of the church in England. This was not at first a doctrinal split in any way, but a personal and political move. Among the prominent figures of the time who opposed the kings decision, Sir Thomas More openly disapproved of the severance of the ties with Rome, refused to repudiate Papal authority and was reluctantly executed by Henry. Through the Act of Supremacy, the medieval tenet that church and state were separate entities with divine law standing higher than human law had been legislated out of existence; the new English church was in effect a department of the Tudor state. The destruction of the Roman Catholic church led inevitably to the dissolution of the monasteries and, as monastic religious fervor and economic resources began to diminish, it was easy enough for the government to build a case that monasteries were centers of vice and corruption, which attracted Henry the support of the common people. In the new Church of England, the Bishops retained their place, taking the King instead of Pope as master. As Supreme Head of the Church, Henry proceeded to reform the religion of his subjects in order to complete the breach with Rome. Relicworship, image-worship, and pardon-mongering, the grosser popular superstitions which Erasmus had attacked, were rejected. All over the country relics were being destroyed. A very important aspect of the Reformation was that Henry ordered that prayers should be held in English and the Bible in English was not only permitted to circulate freely, but also was ordered to be set up in every parish church. The Elisabethan Age No one in 1558, any more than in 1485, would have predicted that despite the social discord, political struggles, and international humiliation of the past decade, the kingdom stood again on the threshold of an extraordinary reign. After a brief interlude represented by the Catholic reign of Mary Stuart, the Anglican church resumed its domination over the hearts of the English, as well as over the crown, in the person of Elisabeth I (1558-1603), who managed once more to sever the ties with Rome, at the same time bringing stability to her subjects. Queen Elisabeth was the product of a fine Renaissance education, and she was well aware of the countrys need for strong secular leadership. Moreover, she possessed her father's magnetism without his egotism or ruthlessness and was determined to be queen in fact as well as in name using gracefully tact combined with firmness. In organizing her reign, the queen followed the hierarchical assumptions of the day. All creation was presumed to be a great chain of being, running from the tiniest insect to God himself, and the universe was seen as an organic whole in which each part played a divinely prescribed role. As a mirroring of these philosophical assumptions, even in politics, every element was expected to obey one head in the same way as all parts of the human body obeyed the brain. The institution of monarchy was divine and gave leadership, but it could not stand by itself, nor could it claim a monopoly of divinity. The Privy Council, acting as the spokesman of royalty, planned and initiated all legislation, while the Parliament was expected to turn that legislation into law. Inside and outside Parliament the goal of Tudor government was benevolent paternalism in which the strong hand of the nascent authority was masked by a careful shaping of public opinion.
166

We could say that the Tudors were quite medieval in their economic and social philosophy. The aim of government was to reduce competition and regulate life and the result aimed at was an ordered and stable, if not static, society with a high respect for hierarchy and social status. It is during this age that the following elements are enshrined: the moral obligation of all men to work, the existence of divinely ordered social distinctions, and the need for the state to define and control all occupations in terms of their utility to society. The state, in the person of the queen, assumed control of such social problems as poverty, unemployment, and vagrancy, too widespread for the church to handle. All parishes were instructed to collect taxes to pay for poor relief and to provide work for the able-bodied, punishment for the indolent, and charity for the sick, the aged, and the disabled. Elizabethan society For a few years Elizabethan England seemed to possess an extraordinary internal balance and external dynamism. In part the queen herself was responsible. The Elizabethan Age was a success because men had new and exciting areas at their disposal, both of the mind and geographic, into which to channel their energies. A revolution in reading and writing was taking place, and by 1640 nearly 100 percent of the gentry and merchant elements were literate. Wealth and literacy were directly related. New schools were founded and large sums of money invested into secondary school education. The student population of both Oxford and Cambridge reflected the new literacy, increasing dramatically. The aim of Tudor education was to shape the public opinion by agency of this newly acquired literacy. A knowledge of Latin or of Greek became, even more than elegant clothing, the mark of the social elite. The educated Englishman was no longer a cleric but a J.P. or M.P. (justice of the peace or member of Parliament), a merchant or a landed gentleman who for the first time was able to express his economic, political, and religious dreams and grievances in terms of abstract principles. The importance of this widespread literacy is enormous, if we become aware of the fact that, without it the spiritual impact of the Puritans or, later, the formation of parties based on ideologies would have been as impossible as the cultural explosion that produced Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Bacon, and Donne . Also, under the reign of Queen Elisabeth Theatre occupied an important role in the life of London. Although comedy companies had existed during Henry VIIs reign, it is during this period that the first permanent theatrical companies appeared, the most famous of which being the Globe, which was partly owned by Shakespeare himself. The 16th century equally marks the beginning of the maritime explorations that were to lead to the construction of the British Empire. From a kingdom that had once been known for its sense of security, Englishmen suddenly turned to the sea and the world that was opening up around them. The first steps had been taken under Henry VII when John Cabot in 1497 sailed in search of a Northwest Passage to China followed by a series of voyages during the 1570s to northern Canada in the hope of finding gold and a shortcut to the Orient, as well as by travels in Africa in quest of slaves to sell to West Indian plantation owners and Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in 1577. This new tendency was inspired not only by the need for riches but also by religion - the desire to found a new and better nation in the wilderness. All these elements managed to counterbalance the problems of
167

Elisabeths reign, and succeeded in generating a self-confidence that had been missing during previous reigns. At the beginning of the 17th century, England and Wales contained more than four million people. The population had nearly doubled over the previous century, and it continued to grow for another 50 years. London could be ranked with the great continental cities, most of its population being constituted of poor migrants who came to the capital in search of work or charity. London was the centre of government, of overseas trade and finance, of fashion, taste, and culture. It was ruled by a merchant oligarchy, whose wealth increased tremendously over the course of the century as international trade expanded. London not only ruled the English mercantile world, but it also dominated the rural economy of the southeast by its large demand for food and clothing. The rural economy was predominantly agricultural. Around the middle of the century it fully recovered and entered a period of sustained growth, so that a nation that could barely feed itself in 1600 was an exporter of grain by 1700. Sheep raising was more frequent in the northeast and southwest, which soon became the location of the only significant manufacturing activity in England, the woolen cloth industry. Wool was spun into large cloths for export to Holland, where the highly technical finishing processes were performed before it was sold commercially. Soon, the English mercantile economy was transformed from its previous dependence upon a single commodity into a diversified economy that dealt with dozens of domestic and colonial products. Questions: 1. Indicate the reasons for Henry VIIIs break with Rome. Was the break caused only by personal reasons? Give reasons for the public reaction to this decision. 2. What is the importance of the Act of Supremacy? 3. On what grounds was the royal authority based at the end of Henry VIII? 4. Indicate the philosophical assumptions of the time, which influenced Queen Elisabeth I in organising her reign. 5. Point out the changes that took place during Elisabeths reign in education, lifestyle and the economic field. 6. Name three important writers that lived and created during the reign of Queen Elisabeth. THE CIVIL WAR Charles I (1625-1649) The Tudor era clearly influenced the general outlook on life of the English, yet it represented part of a larger current that was prevailing at the time in continental Europe. The Stuart period that was to follow after the death of Queen Elisabeth brought along a more individualised development on the part of Britain, which did not follow the absolutist tendencies on the continent. The conflicts with the despotic France of Louis XIV and the subsequent successes of England in this conflict brought the latter a great popularity on the continent. Also it is under the Stuarts that the establishment of the British Empire in North America and South Africa took place.
168

James VI of Scotland (1567-1625), son of Mary Queen of Scots, followed Elisabeth on the throne but, his reign, unlike that of his illustrious predecessor, brought about dissent and inaugurated the first disputes with Parliament. In his person, however, Scotland and England were formally united and the conflicts at the Border ceased. But there was no union of the official elements of the two states Parliaments, Churches or laws nor will there be until the 18th century. The clash with Parliament arouse from James intention to impose his ideas on the divine right of the monarch on a country where the power of Parliament was considerable and had started to hold in check the authority of the monarch himself. Continental tensions contributed to the gradual diminishing of the prestige of monarchy in England and brought the Crown into severe conflicts with the House of Commons, which was opposing the taxation caused by the war expenses. Under the pressure of economic crisis, members of the Parliament of 1625 were determined to reform the customs and to limit the crowns right to levy taxes. This led to an open conflict with the king who dissolved the Parliament in1625. Forced to call Parliament again in 1628, he was compelled to agree to the Petition of Right, that limited his right to collect taxes, in return for a badly needed subsidy but soon after dissolved the Parliament again. A serious quarrel with the House of Commons in 1629 led to the fact that Charles governed without Parliament for 11 years. This period was marked by popular opposition to strict enforcement of the practices of the Established Church and to the various devices employed by the government to obtain funds. Charles removed every constitutional control upon his actions. The conflict between Charles and his father before him, and Parliament stemmed from their different approaches to the powers of monarchy. For James the source of the law was the will of the Prince and the judges should follow the directives of the king. His opponents, however, in the spirit of the English common Law, viewed law as having an independent existence set above the King and above its subjects. The royally controlled courts of high commission and Star Chamber waged a harsh campaign against nonconformists and Catholics, which caused large emigrations to America, of both Puritans and Catholics. The peace was broken by the war that took place in Scotland in 1638-40, as a result of Charles attempts to impose the English Prayer Book to the Scottish Church, which had been independent until then. This Scottish Revolt against the king started in fact the British Revolution. The war forced Charles to seek the financial aid of the Parliament. The resulting Short Parliament (13 April-5 May 1640) once more met the kings financial requests. Charles offered to abandon certain taxes, but, as the opposition wished to discuss more fundamental issues, the king dissolved the Parliament in just three weeks. However, the disastrous results of the second Scottish war forced the king to surrender to the opposition, and the Long Parliament was summoned in November1640. The Importance of the Long Parliament resides in that it not only prevented the English Monarchy from hardening into an absolutism similar to the type general in Europe at the time, but it represented a great experiment in the direct ruling of the country by the House of Commons, period during which the Commons organised an army which waged a four-year war against the king. The parliamentarians quickly enacted a series of measures designed to limit the despotic monarchy. A Triennial Act provided that the sessions of Parliament should be held no more than three years apart, while another act prohibited the dissolution of Parliament without its own consent. In Nov. 1641, the Parliament
169

presented its Grand Remonstrance, calling for religious and administrative reforms and reciting its grievances in full against the king. The main issue was settling whether it was king or parliament that had the command of the armed forces ( a command which the tradition and the law assigned to the former) but also to limit the power of the king who was threatening to become tyrannical. Charles denied the charges, and through his unsuccessful attempt to arrest five opposition leaders of Commons, eventually triggered the civil war. The War The followers of king and Parliament did not represent two absolutely distinct social groups. However, it is true that many of the members of the parliamentary, or Puritan, group belonged to the gentry and to the merchant classes and artisans of London, Norwich, Hull, Plymouth, and Gloucester; it centred in the South-eastern counties and had control of the fleet. The majority of the great nobles followed the king, who had the support of most Anglicans and Roman Catholics and, geographically, the royalist strength centred in the north and west. There were no decisive victories in the civil war until Charles was defeated at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645). In 1646 he surrendered to the Scottish army, which delivered him to Parliament. He was ultimately taken over by the English army leaders, who were now highly suspicious of Parliament. He escaped to Carisbrooke, on the Isle of Wight, where he concluded an alliance with the discontented Scots, which led to the second civil war (1648) and another royalist defeat. Parliament, now reduced in number and controlled by Charless most powerful enemies, established a special high court of justice, which tried Charles and convicted him of treason for fighting war against Parliament. He was beheaded on 30 January 1649. To the royalists he became the martyred king, yet he was seen by his opponents as a genuine tyrant. After the kings death the republic known as the Commonwealth was set up, governed by the Rump Parliament (i.e. without the House of Lords) and by an executive council of state. Charles Is son, Charles II, was recognized as king in parts of Ireland and in Scotland, but was forced to flee to the Continent after his defeat at Worcester (1651). The years under the Commonwealth to 1653 and the Protectorate were dominated by the figure of Oliver Cromwell and were marked by strict military administration and enforcement of the Puritan moral code. Commonwealth and Protectorate The execution of the king aroused hostility not only in England but also throughout Europe. The government of the Commonwealth was declared in May 1649 after acts had been passed to abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords and despite opposition and continued external threats. Political power resided in a Council of State, the Rump Parliament and the army. The military became now a permanent part of English government and were assigned the complex tasks of reform to Parliament at the same time being able to intervene in political affairs. The Parliament of 1654 wanted to prepare a new constitution and was soon dissolved; it had been elected under the terms of the first British constitution known as the Instrument of Government, by which Cromwell became Lord protector, thus opening the period known as the Protectorate. The Parliament of 1656, despite the exclusion of many known opponents, was hardly more tolerant. Both were a focus for the multiple discontents of supporters and opponents of the regime.
170

Although in the 1650s he was offered the crown, he refused. When he died in 1658, aged only 59, all hope of continued reform died with him, as his son, Richard incapable of governing, simply left office after a period when his fathers opponents tried to use him to dismantle the civil government. A rebellion of junior officers led to the reestablishment of the Rump Parliament. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION After Olivers death and the failure of his son, Richard, to rule the country, it seemed inevitable that, in order to re-establish the authority of Parliament it was indispensable to re-establish the authority of the king as well. Therefore, in 1660 the two houses of Parliament called back Charles II from exile, period known as the Restoration. During this period several parties began to form the most important being the Whigs and the Tories, which were to dominate the political scene for centuries. In the turmoil of the political context between 1695 and 1713 party issues and party leaders were pushed to the fore. Though party discipline was still not well formed and ideology was a rather new aspect of politics, clearly recognizable political parties had emerged by the end of the reign of William III. In general, the Tories stood for the Anglican church, the land, and the principle of non-resistance to the royal power. They remained divided over the imminent Hanoverian succession, dreaming that James II might convert to Protestantism so that the sanctity of the legitimate succession could be reaffirmed. The Tories opposed an expensive land war and favoured the strategy of dominating the Atlantic and Mediterranean shipping lanes. They believed in the divine right of the king and were reluctant to depose the king. The Whigs were opponents of the monarchy, generally merchants of London, blessed with brilliant leadership and an inexhaustible supply of good luck. Through their influence the Bloodless Revolution succeeded, as they understood the economic and political dangers to which their interests and those of the country for that matter would have been exposed by Jacobite Restoration of Catholicism in England. They therefore supported William of Orange and Mary. The Bloodless Revolution By the time he died in 1685, and after several conflicts with the Parliament, whom he dissolved several times, Charles was fully master of his state financially independent of Parliament and politically secure, with loyal Tory servants predominating in local and national government. Government in the last years of his reign had been based upon the close co-operation of the Court and the High Church and the Tory Party on the other. At his death James II followed to the throne. James tried to reintroduce Catholicism in the country. In this, he followed the French, Jesuit model, yet he enjoyed neither the support of Parliament, nor of the moderate English Catholics. What James opponents, including Pope Innocent XI hoped to accomplish in England was a climate of religious tolerance and they tried to do this with the help of William of Orange (of Dutch descent), husband of James daughter, Mary. In Europe, the persecution of Protestants by Louis XIV and the revocation of the edict of Nantes prepared the anti-Catholic feeling in England. For fear that similar persecutions against the protestants could spread in England as well made the various sects and shades of Protestants to unite against the fanatical
171

policy of the King. Although the Tory majority in Parliament was reluctant to depose the king, the birth of a Prince of Wales, baptised Catholic, on June 10 made them realise the fact that it was he who would succeed to the throne. The support that William of Orange enjoyed grew constantly and when in December 1668 James fled England to take refuge at the court of France, the first step in the Glorious Revolution occurred as William and Mary ascended to throne. Their arrival on the British Throne is known as the Bloodless Revolution and was meant to insure stability in a country divided by political conflicts between king and parliament and among the various religious factions. The Church remained Anglican and through the Toleration Act of 1689 the right of religious worship was granted to Protestant nonconformists. The Declaration of Rights and the Bill of Rights (1689), signed by the two new monarchs, redefined the relationship between monarch and subjects and forbade any future Catholic succession to the throne, drastically diminishing the royal liberties. Thus, the king could no longer suspend and dispense with the law and the crown was forbidden to levy taxation or maintain a standing army in peacetime without parliamentary consent. The provisions of the Bill of Rights were, in effect, the conditions upon which the throne was offered to and accepted by William and Mary. These events were a milestone in the gradual process by which practical power shifted from the monarch to Parliament and never again was the superiority of Parliament successfully challenged. The Revolution had decided once and for all the balance between Parliamentary and royal power in favour of Parliament and since 1689 onwards no British king ever attempted to rule without the support of Parliament or to ignore the votes of the Commons. After the Revolution Settlement, England did not receive a written, unalterable Constitution which would have enshrined the powers assigned to the monarchs (William and Mary) at their coronation. This enabled the gradual changes that monarchy underwent in England, allowing it to adapt to the requirements of each passing age. A almost holy, written constitution was necessary to insure the federal union of the US after they had cut themselves off from the Old Empire and needed a firm basis for further development; but in England such a strictness was quite unnecessary. Another element that distinguished the government of 18th century England from other governments on the Continent were: Parliamentary control, freedom of speech, press and person, as well as tolerance towards religious issues. But political and social power in this century was concentrated in the class of the landowners, which was to enhance the great evils that the Industrial Revolution was to bring along. The Loss of the American Colonies George II (1727-1760) died in October 1760 and was succeeded by his grandson, who became George III. The new king became one of the most controversial British monarchs. The event commonly associated with his reign is the loss of the American colonies, an important blow to both his Majestys empire and to British assumptions and certainties in general. The independence of the American colonies was nonetheless followed by further colonial expansions on the part of Britain that culminated with the annexation in the next century of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, whose result was the establishment of a British Empire of unprecedented dimensions and strength.
172

Thus, in Canada, the French were carrying out a well-conceived plan of a line of military posts all the way from the mouths of the St Lawrence to the Lakes, through which they were planning to appropriate to France all northern territories of America. The English settlements, except Massachussets were unlikely to unite in a common policy due mainly to inner rivalries. On the other hand, the French colonists were united in obedience to their government, Church and State. The Seven Years War began in 1756, the British being under the leadership of Sir William Pitt. Pitt fought on the continent for the maintaining of the Status quo, but overseas he successfully fought to re-establish the naval supremacy and prevent the French expansion in North America. As post-war arrangements in 1763, the Treaty of Paris made the French to withdraw from the North American Continent. But at the same time this colonial victory led to the disruption of the first British Empire because it relieved the English colonists of the danger that made them look for protection to the mother country. Moreover, by the middle of the 18th century, differences in life, thought, and interests had developed between the mother country and the growing colonies. Local political institutions and practice diverged significantly from English ways, and social customs, religious beliefs, and economic interests only added to the potential sources of conflict. English society was still aristocratic while American society was already democratic, the distance prevented an easy intercourse between the two countries and emigration from England to America had slowed down since 1640. Also, the Puritans were still banned from public life in England, while in America Puritanism dominated public life and Anglicanism was viewed as unfashionable. Also, in England political opinion was mainly that of landowners, while in America it consisted of farmers and frontiersmen of the forest. These differences in mentalities between two societies set apart by circumstances and daily life, rendered compromise difficult, if not impossible to attain. The British government, through the Navigation Act, had intended to regulate commerce in the British best interests, but these rules were only loosely enforced, and the colonies were allowed to freely develop with little interference from England. At the same time the ministry (176365) of George Grenville in Great Britain undertook a new colonial policy intended to tighten political and fiscal control over the colonies. The Americans objected to being taxed by a parliament where they were not even virtually represented and opposed the Townshend Acts, which taxed numerous imports. Incidents followed rapidly, making the open conflict inevitable: the seizure of a ship belonging to John Hancock in 1768 or the bloodshed of the Boston Massacre in 1770. Despite the revocation of the Townshend Acts in 1770, the colonies still protested against the Tax on Tea, considered as a sort of token of Parliaments supremacy. Indignation in New England regarding the monopoly granted to the East India Company led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773. 19 April 1775 marks the beginning of the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence is conventionally dated the 4th of July 1776. Drawn up by Thomas Jefferson (with slight amendments), it was to be one of the great historical documents of all times, despite the fact that it did not have any immediate positive effect. The Loyalists in the newly instated United States crossed the border to neighbouring Canada, still under British rule, thus altering the balance between the French and the English speaking colonists in the colony.
173

England during the Reign of George III and the Industrial Revolution It is during these years that industry began to develop in Britain, which was to condition the countrys relationship with the rest of the world and to consolidate its economic position already established through trade and colonial expansion. One direct consequence of this development of industry is the changes it triggered in the pattern of labor and working life, the focus shifting from agriculture and life in the countryside to a gradual urbanization. Another consequence would be the gradual disappearance of older cottage industries, and the opening of large factories. As increasingly large numbers of people moved into the cities, attracted by the prospects of increased wages, the social scene witnessed the emergence of a new class, devoid of clear political affiliations and skeptical of those who supposedly represented its interests in Parliament. Despite this and despite the fact that the problem was discussed extensively, social reform made little progress so that there were basically no changes regarding the extension of the suffrage or a redistribution of parliamentary representation. Direct consequences of the Industrial Revolution: - The rise in the number of inhabitants of Great Britain The improvement in transportation Communications and transport in Britain underwent a new series of transformations and gradually, the railway, powered by the steam engine, caused the country to get smaller. - The creation of the Black county in the West region where the production of iron was concentrated. With the introduction of James Watts steam engine modern mechanics was introduced and a new social class appeared. - The immigration of the poor farmers into the new industrialised districts and into towns. - Rural life was almost purely agricultural, traditional and poor. The monotony of village life in the 19th century was due to the migration to the industries to the urban districts. - Parliament started the general enclosure system with hedges or stone walls, a system that was grossly against the poor villagers, but which opened the way to modern agriculture. Thus, the 18th century saw the arrival of the improving landlords, who invested in land, studied and practised a scientific type of agriculture. Wealth increased rapidly in town and country and the contrast between the life of the rich and that of the poor were more dramatic and more widely observable than before. Questions: 1. Point out the differences between the Whig and the Tory parties, as they emerge for the first time during Williams reign. 2. Which were the political and economic conditions that caused the loss of the American Colonies? 3. What was the attitude of the British public towards the American Revolution? THE VICTORIAN AGE (18371901) Queen Victoria was the daughter of Edward, duke of Kent and the fourth son of George III, and Princess Mary Louise Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. At the age of 18, she succeeded her uncle, William IV, to the throne. With the accession of a woman, the connection between the English and Hanoverian thrones ceased in
174

accordance with the Salic law of Hanover2. Victoria had nine children in her marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Their marriages and those of her grandchildren allied the British royal house with those of Russia, Germany, Greece, Denmark, and several of the German states. What the new monarch had to do was to adapt the British system of Parliamentary Cabinet government to the new social facts created by the Industrial Revolution, namely to allow the admission of the middle and of the working classes as partners in government. By a gradual transition, that took place throughout the 19th century, political rights were extended to all social classes, without the social or political upheavals of previous ages. The extension of political franchise, the right to vote, compelled the nation to elaborate a system of national education, which soon led to an explosion of literacy among the middle and working classes. Politically, the Victorian age saw the strengthening of the two-party system, the Tory- the Conservatories and the Whigs the Liberals. Parliamentary reform was also a process stemming out of the circumstances of the hour, culminating in 1832 when the Reform Bill was passed, granting the right to vote to the working classes. One direct consequence of the Reform Bill was the abolition of slavery in the British Empire by the Act of 1833, though they continued to be used extensively in the US. Socially, there was an unprecedented increase in the population of the island, which led to high levels of unemployment. A constant stream of emigration headed to Canada, Australia and South Africa. Under lord Durham the Colonial Office set up a coherent policy regarding emigration, that encouraged English agriculturists to head for the dominions. As far as the relations with US are concerned, the latter were in a very expansionist mood, conquering nature and peopling a continent with unprecedented speed that threatened Canadas rights of expansion westward. In 1846 the frontier between Canada and the US was settled along the line of latitude 49O. These amiable relations between the two countries were troubled by the American Civil War 1861-65 and continued for several years after the war had ended to be settled at Geneva in 1872. The Boer Wars in South Africa (1899-1902) shook the public opinion of the Metropolis almost to the same extent as the loss of the American Colonies, the previous century, while the inter-racial conflicts in Canada led to the creation of a self-administering Federal Union in 1867. Religion Perhaps the most profound challenge to religion came with Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species, another of the great books of the remarkable year 1859. Darwins theories influenced and bolstered the Critical sense of many Victorians, echoing other scientific discoveries that were challenging the religious beliefs of the time. Yet a strong moral sense remained and could be felt in all manifestations of social life. The English religious spectrum was very complex. The Church of England was flanked on one side by Rome and on the other by religious dissent. The Roman Catholic church was growing in importance not only in the Irish sections of the industrial cities, but also among university students and teachers. Dissent had a grip on the whole culture of large sections of the middle classes, and
2

Rule of succession in certain royal and noble families of Europe, forbidding females and those descended in the female line to succeed to the titles or offices in the family

175

the age also witnessed the appearance of a whole network of local voluntary bodies, led either by Anglicans or Dissenters, usually in rivalry. However, there were thousands of people in mid-Victorian England quite indifferent toward the message of Christianity, a fact that was demonstrated by the religious census of 1851. Although movements like the Salvation Army attempted to attract the poor of the great cities, they did not manage to convert significant numbers of people. In Scotland, where the Church of Scotland had been fashioned by the people against the crown, there was a revival of Presbyterianism in the 1820s and '30s, whereas in Wales there was a particularly vigorous rise of conformity. Lifestyle Mid-Victorian England was relatively quiet. The family was regarded by most mid-Victorians as the central institution in society. Nationally a kind of balance was achieved between the busy industrial north and midlands and the more tranquil countryside. Also, an important feature of the age is the emphasis placed on the new ideal of the self-made man, which did not supersede, however, that of gentleman. There was far more talk during this period of self-help than there was of class conflict; the Victorian society was a very stable one, its main theories resting on the assumption that class dividing lines could and should stay unchanged, provided that individuals in each class could move. Also, a more severe discipline was felt at all levels. As far as the moral assumptions of the time are concerned, Victorianism came to represent a cluster of moral attributes "character," "duty," "will," earnestness, hard work, respectable comportment and behaviour, and thrift, which were not only embraced by the bourgeoisie, but also by other social classes, be it aristocracy or the merchant class. In the Victorian age, the middle class had achieved the political power it needed to hold and consolidate the economic position it had already obtained. Industry and commerce burgeoned. While the affluence of the middle class increased, the lower classes, thrown off their land and into the cities to form the great urban working class, lived ever more wretchedly. The social changes were swift and brutal and the intellectuals and artists of the age had to deal in some way with the confusion in society, the obvious inequities that divided the very rich and the very poor, a situation which strongly contrasted with the emphasis on public rectitude and moral propriety, emanating from the throne of Queen Victoria. Also, the general level of literacy allowed the middle and lower classes access to written forms of entertainment, the most popular of which being the novel. The position of women underwent no significant change, despite the fact that the head of Victorian society was a woman. Within working class households women handled the same tasks and had to endure the same treatment as before. Working women however existed but were mainly employed in the domestic service. Middle class women could also become governesses, a respectable but ill rewarded position. Another possible alternative was that of teaching or of nursing, with Florence Nightingale who triggered the change in mentalities that led do the transformation of nursing into an acceptable and respectable career for a woman. Questions: 1. What is the importance of the Industrial Revolution on the whole of British society? What triggered it off?
176

2. Name the consequences of the increasing welfare of the middle class. 3. Did industrialisation in England have a dark side as well? Which was it? Name one Victorian author that depicted this side of English society in his/her novels. 4. Which were the most important events for the British Empire, that took place during the reign of queen Victoria? 5. Point out the changes in mentalities during the Victorian age. By what were these changes triggered? 6. Which were the tenets of Victorian thought? 7. Describe the religious spectrum in Victorian Britain. WORLD WAR ONE Edward VII, Victoria's successor came to the throne at 59; he had never been on good terms with his mother, whose way of life was sharply different from his. He, too, gave his name to an age: flamboyant, ostentatious, sometimes vulgar and strident, with picturesque contrasts of fortune and circumstance. Changes in economic conditions during the last decades of the century were obviously of crucial importance. Mid-Victorian prosperity had reached its peak in a boom that collapsed in 1873. Although agriculture and industry began to face competition from other European countries, England dominated the world scene as banker and financier, with the City of London at the centre of international markets of capital, money, and commodities. The economic basis of the imperial power was still impressive, as Britain was, in the inter-war period, the world leader in industrial development and trade. Despite a very strong nationalism within the metropolis, the unity of the empire was beginning to be threatened by the first stirrings of indigenous nationalism, perceivable both in native possessions, like Egypt or India, and in the white dominions, more particularly in South Africa. As far as external relations were concerned, an increasing conflict with other colonialist powers Russia and France, but also America, Japan and Germany was felt. After the Napoleonic wars, with the exception of the Crimean war, and until the First World War, Great Britain maintained a policy of splendid isolation in the affairs of the continent. The changes in the power balance on the continent and outside Europe rendered necessary the defining of a clear set of alliances. An alliance with Japan was made, originally to counterbalance the advance of Russia on to the shores of the Pacific and to prevent the partition of China by Russia, Germany and France. This alliance also favoured the development of the first coloured Great Power, to which other European powers were hostile. As the attempts to secure a Entente with Germany were rejected, British efforts were directed to the French Republic and the Russian Tsar. The British declaration of war on Germany on 4 August 1914 brought an end to the threat of civil war in Ireland. The Allies (Great Britain, France, Russia, Serbia, Montenegro, Japan and Belgium) and the Central Powers (Germany, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary) fought a war at an unprecedented scale and violence, whose real reasons lied in the imperialistic, territorial, and economic rivalries that had been intensifying from the late 19th century, particularly among Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, and which had been triggered by the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by a Serbian nationalist in 1914.
177

After four years of war, whose total losses were about 10 million dead and 20 million wounded, figures further increased by the starvation and epidemics which raised the total in the immediate postwar years, German resources were exhausted and German morale had collapsed. The war ended without a single truly decisive battle having been fought, and Germany lost the war while its troops were still occupying territory from France to Crimea. World War I and the resulting peace treaties radically changed the face of Europe and precipitated political, social, and economic changes. Consequences of the War On the social level, World War I affected Britain more fundamentally than any other of the Western allies, and far more, it would appear, than did World War II, as it had provided the occasion for massive governmental experiments in economic enterprise, in insurance, in the management of the railroads and coal mines, and above all in the huge ministry of munitions. The experience acquired during the war in these fields was successfully used after the war in domestic improvements. The war also brought about the idea that the government was the ideal employer and represented a massive catalyst for social and economic change. Secondly, the war blurred the frontiers between the classes and the sexes so that soon the distinction between the common worker and the gentleman became quite old-fashioned. The employee-employer relationship changed as well, involving less fear and also less respect on the part of the former toward the latter. The war also changed the position of women, bringing political, and to some extent economic and social emancipation. With the outbreak of war, womens movement had turned its attention to the military effort. Large numbers of women were employed by the ministry of munitions, smaller numbers by private armament makers against serious opposition by unions, and still fewer in government and private offices, but the war also brought them the political emancipation in 1918, while in 1928 the age when women acquired the right to vote became the same with the mens. Economically Britain had been hurt severely. By the end of the war Britain had moved from the position of a creditor to that of a debtor nation. Moreover, its industrial power, already out of date at the start of the war depreciated even more. The new global economy caused the industries of the Industrial Revolution, upon which British prosperity had been built, to become now either weakened or redundant, as other countries occupied the market for those particular products in the trade of which Britain had once held supremacy. The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles prevented Britain from resuming trade with Germany, previously its largest foreign customer. As far as the political plan is concerned, the most remarkable changes were represented by the new Representation of the People Act (1918), which, as mentioned above, gave free voting rights to all men and women over 30. Another important political fact is the almost complete disappearance from the political scene of the Liberal party formerly known as Tory and the unprecedented ascension of the Labour Party, which enjoyed the support of the Trade-unions and represented the interests of the large working masses. 1919 marks the beginning of the open conflicts in Ireland, as the provisional government of Ireland, organized by the Sinn Fin party, started guerrilla military operations against the British administration. On 6 December 1921, after prolonged negotiations, the British government and the Irish rebels signed a treaty allowing the establishment of the dominion government in Dublin.
178

Another important co-ordinate of the postwar period is the gradual autonomy gained by the former British colonies and their transformation into self-governing dominions. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were granted the right to decide both in their domestic and foreign affairs, by the second Status from Westminster (1931), from now on the only connection between England and the nations forming the Commonwealth remaining the king himself. As a result of the Status, the Parliament of GB should legislate for the Dominions only at their own request, and the king could take no advice about appointments or other action in the dominions except from Dominion statesmen. In the post war it is no longer Parliament but the crown that unites the Empire, in a more symbolic fashion, though in law as well. Questions: 1. Indicate the political and economic causes of World War I. 2. Who were the two parties in conflict? Name the countries constituting the two camps. 3. What historic event caused the two parties to open the hostilities? 4. Describe the social and economic consequences of the war on Britain. 5. Emphasize the changes the war brought about on the political scene. 6. What changes occurred in the colonies after the First World War? 7. What would be the role of the monarch following the Status from Westminster? 8. Which had been the first colony to be given the right to establish a dominion government in 1921? Which were the colonies that followed? THE SECOND WORLD WAR After World War I, the defeated forces, Germany, Italy, and Japan, anxious to regain their power and authority on the world scene, gradually began to develop forms of dictatorship that granted supreme powers to the state and began to expand their territories at the expense of neighbouring countries. Also, in July 1936, the revolution against the Republican government of Spain broke out, led by conservative forces within the Spanish army under the command of General Francisco Franco, who, with the help of Germany and Italy eventually defeated the democratic forces and installed the fascist dictatorship. In May 1939 Germany and Italy signed a full military alliance, and, after the Soviet-German non-aggression pact (August 1939) had removed German fears of a possible two-front war, Germany was ready to launch an attack on Poland. World War II began on 1 September 1939, when Germany, without a declaration of war, invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September, and all the members of the Commonwealth of Nations, except Ireland, rapidly followed their example. The fighting in Poland was brief. The German Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, with its use of new techniques of mechanized and air warfare, crushed the Polish defences, and, by the time the Soviet forces entered the territory, the conquest was almost complete. Great Britain gained a new ally on June 22, 1941, when Germany (joined by Italy, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Finland), invaded the Soviet Union. By December 1941, Germany had destroyed a substantial part of the Soviet army and had conquered much of European Russia but its troops were soon brought to a stop by the harsh Russian winter. Despite its determination to maintain its neutrality, the United States was gradually drawn into war by the unannounced attack of Japan on Pearl Harbour in
179

December 1941. War was declared on 8 December on Japan by the United States, the Commonwealth of Nations (except Ireland), and the Netherlands and, a few days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. By the beginning of 1944, air warfare had turned overwhelmingly in favour of the Allies, who wrought unprecedented destruction on many German cities and on transport and industries throughout German-held Europe. This air offensive prepared the way for the landing of the Allies in Northern France on the coast of Normandy. After heavy fighting in Normandy, Allied troops advanced to the Rhine, clearing most of France and Belgium of German forces by October 1944. German collapse came in April after the meeting of the Western and Russian armies in Saxony, and after Hitlers death amid the ruins of Berlin, which was falling to the Russians. The unconditional surrender of Germany was signed at Reims and ratified through the Treaty of Berlin on 8 May 1944. Consequences of the War Japan, with most of its navy sunk, staggered beneath the blows of the Allied armies, but refused to surrender. At the Yalta Conference, the USSR secretly promised its aid against Japan. On 6 August 1945, the United States used the atomic bomb and devastated Hiroshima; three days later a second bomb was launched on Nagasaki. On 14 August Japan announced its surrender, formally signed on 2 September. Although hostilities came to an end in September 1945, a new world crisis, caused by the postwar conflict between the USSR and the United States, made settlement difficult the two chief powers to emerge from the war. Perhaps the most important consequence of the war is represented by the beginning of the Cold War between the Western powers and the Communist-bloc nations. Social consequences of the War in Britain As far as Britain is concerned, an important political lesson of World War II consists in the realization that a democratic nation, with a centuries-old tradition of individual liberty, could with popular consent be mobilized for a gigantic national effort, as the obligatory employment of labour became universal, for both men and women. The British economy suffered severely from the war. Manpower losses had been severe, including about 420,000 dead; large urban areas had to be rebuilt, and the industrial plant needed reconstruction and modernization. World War II brought about an unprecedented unification in the political plan. Politics became almost irrelevant to the large public, preoccupied mostly with the direction of the war. There was some parliamentary criticism of Churchill's leadership, but public approval, measured by repeated opinion polls, hardly changed. Postwar Britain In 1952 Elisabeth II succeeded George VI, into a country severely shaken by the war at both the social and the economic levels. The war had also brought about significant political consequences; Britain and France were reduced to the status of powers of lesser rank, in comparison with USA. Leadership in world trade, shipping, and banking had passed to the United States, and overseas investments had been largely liquidated to pay the cost of the world wars. This was a serious blow to the British economy because the income from these activities had previously served to offset the import-export deficit. It is now that the Common Market appeared on the economic and
180

political scene, announcing the future European Union and that many former colonies in Asia and Africa began their struggle for independence. British India was divided (1947) into two self-governing states, India and Pakistan. Groundwork was laid for the independence of many other colonies; like India and Pakistan, most of them remained in the Commonwealth after independence. In 1949 Great Britain joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and fought on the United Nations side in the Korean War (195053). Self-Assessment Test ( 100 pts) 1. Which were the reasons that caused the Roman Empire to withdraw its legions from Britain? What was the importance of the Norman Conquest? Why is 1066 considered the most important date in British history? 2. Enumerate the main causes of the 100 Years War between England and France. 3. Indicate the reasons for Henry VIIIs break with Rome. Was the break caused only by personal reasons? Give reasons for the public reaction to this decision. 4. Point out the changes that took place during Elisabeths reign in education, lifestyle and the economic field. 5. Which were the basic reasons that triggered the conflicts between the king and the Parliament before the Civil War? 6. Which were the political and economic conditions that caused the loss of the American Colonies? 7. What is the importance of the Industrial Revolution on the whole of British society? What triggered it off? 8. What changes occurred in the colonies after the First World War? 9. What were the general causes that led to the Second World War? 10. What is the importance of the Treaty of Berlin and which were its direct consequences? Total: 100 points. Each question is allotted 10 points. (The key to the questions will be available on the Internet.)
Bibliografie obligatorie Oana Godeanu, A Brief Introduction to British History and Civilization, Editura Fundaiei Romnia de Mine, Bucureti, 2003. Adrian Nicolescu, Istoria i civilizaia britanic, Editura Institutul European, Iai 1999. G. M. Trevelyan, Istoria ilustrat a Angliei, Ed. tiinific, Bucureti, 1975 (G. M. Trevelyan, Illustrated History of England, Longmans, London, 1962). Andr Maurois, Istoria Angliei, Editura tiinific, Bucureti, 1970. Bibliografie facultativ John Cannon (ed.), The Oxford Companion to British History, Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press, 1997. Dan Grigorescu, Arta englez, Editura Meridiane, Bucureti, 1989. Kenneth O. Morgan (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996. 181