:
Қазақстан Республикасы Білім және ғылым министрлігі
“Сырдария” университеті
«Гуманитарлық білім» факультеті
«Шет тілдері» кафедрасы
«Oқып жатқан елдің тарихы»
пәні бойынша “050119”- “Шет тілі: екі шет тілі”
мамандықтарының
3-курс студенттерінің білімін
бақылауға арналған
ОБСӨЖ тапсырмалары
Оқытушы: Калибасова А.Қ.
Жетісай - 2009ж.
1
А Л Ғ Ы С Ө З
“0505119” “Шет тілі” мамандығының 3-курс студенттерін
6- семестрде «Оқып жатқан елдің тарихы »
пәніне оқу жоспарына сәйкес 3 кредит (135 сағат) берілген. Оның 45
сағаты лекция, 45 сағат ОБСӨЖ, 45 сағаты СӨЖ-ге бөлінген.
Кредиттік оқыту жүйесінде студенттердің өзіндік жұмысын (СӨЖ)
ұйымдастыру
маңызды орны алады. Оқытушылардың СӨЖ
ұйымдастырудағы негізгі функциялары:
- студенттерге бағыт-бағдар беру;
- студенттерге консультатциялық көмек, кеңес беру;
- студенттердің білім бақылау,бағалау.
Студенттердің өзіндік жұмысты орындау барысындағы негізгі
міндеттері:
- сабақ барысында берілген ақпараттарды белсенді қабылдау;
- оқытушының кеңесін негізге алып, өз бетінше дайындалу,
өздеріне қатаң талап қоя білу;
- күрделі, ауқымды, проблемалқ ситуацияларды, мәселелерді
меңгеруде оқытушыдан дер кезінде түсініктеме, кеңес, көмек
алу.
Студенттердің
өзіндік
жұмыстарын
өткізуде
келесі
мәселелерге көңіл бөлінуі тиіс:
- СӨЖ нақты жоспарлау;
- әдістемелік қамтамасыз ету;
- СӨЖ тапсырмаларының күнтізбелік-тақырыптық жоспарға
сәйкес орындалуын студенттен талап ету.
СӨЖ бақылау түрлерін, тәсілдерін таңдауда оқу пәнінің
мақсаты мен міндеті, бөлінген сағат көлемі, студенттің дайындық
деңгейі ескерілген.
2
Студенттің өзіндік жұмысы
Материал
жинау,
жаттығу
жұмыстарын
орындау, тест,
конспектілеу,
талдау
жүргізу,
реферат,
бақылау
жұмыстары.
Үй
тапсырмалары
Студент
Аудиториялық
жұмыстар
Ой
бөліс,
коллоквиум,
тест,дөңгелек
стол,
пікірталас,
әңгімелесу,
жаттығу
орындау.
Студент+
оқытушы
Оқытушы: бақылау, бағалау
Кіріспе
бақылау
Ағымдағы
(күнделікті
бақылау)
Аралық
бақылау
(рейтинг)
7,14 - апта
Қорытынды
бақылау
(емтихан)
Студенттің білімін объективті бағалауды, бақылауды ұйымдасытру студенттің өзіне деген сенімділігін, жауапкершілігін, пәнді меңгерудегі
белсенділігін арттырады.
Студенттердің өз бетімен орындайтын жұмыстарының дайындық
деңгейін, білімін бақылауға « Оқып жатқан елдің тарихы »пәні
бойынша тестілік тапсырмалар, коллоквиум, глоссарий және пікірталас, ой
– бөліс сұрақтары дайындалған.
3
Күнтізбелік –
тақырыптық
жоспары
4
Қазақстан Республикасы Білім және ғылым министрлігі
“Сырдария” университеті
“Гуманитарлық білім” факультеті
“Шет тілдері” кафедрасы
“Бекітемін”
Кафедра меңгерушісі, к.п.н д
____________Н.Қ.Жарқымбекова
(қолы)
“___” __________2008__ж
КҮНТІЗБЕЛІК-ТАҚЫРЫПТЫҚ ЖОСПАР
Оқып жатқан елдің тарихы пәнінен
050119- Шет тілі __________________мамандығына арналған
Шт- 16
тобы үшін
оқытудың формасы күндізгі
Курс_3_
Семестр_6__
Кредит саны __3___
Барлық сағат саны: 135
Лекция.:45
ОБСӨЖ: 45
СӨЖ: 45
1. Р.Б. 30 балл
2. Р.Б. 30 балл
Емтихан- 40 балл
Барлығы: 100 балл
Оқытушы: Калибасова А.Қ.
Жетісай 2008
5
Оқып жатқан елдің тарихы
Лекция сабақтарының күнтізбелік – тақырыптық жоспары
050119 «Шет ел тiлi: eкi шет ел тiлi» мамандығы,
3 – курс, 6 – семестр. 45 сағат
КРЕДИТ-5
№
Тақырыбы
Өткізілетін м
Өткізілетін
Сағат саны
мерзімі
1 Ancient Britons
1
1The Ancient Population
2Who were the Britons?
3Their Religion
2 The Romans
1
The coming of the Romans
3 Britain under the Romans
1111
Hadrian’s Wall
111
4
1
Roman Towns
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
. Anglo-Saxon England
1The Invasion by Anglo-Saxons
2Christianity
The Raids of the Danes.
Uniting the Country
Alfred the Great
England after Alfred the Great’s Reign
.Medieval Britain
England after the Norman Conquest
William the Conqueror
1
English King s of the 11th and 12th
1
Education.The First Universities
Medieval Town
1
1
1
1
1
12 Wars abroad and at home
England in the 14th century
13
The hundred Year’s War
1
14
1
.The Peasant’s Revolt of 1381
15 The NEW MONARCHY
Henry VII
1
1
Апта
саны
1
апта
1
апта
1
апта
2
апта
2
апта
2
апта
3
апта
3
апта
3
апта
4
апта
4
апта
4
апта
5
апта
5
апта
5
апта
6
16
17
18
19
20
21
Henry VIII
The Protestant-Catholic Struggle
Elizabeth I
The new foreign policy
Wales and Ireland
Scottish King for England
1
1
1
1
1
1
22 Tudor Parliaments
2
23 Changes in the life of people
2
24 Economy
2
25 The problem of the poor
2
26 Domestic life
2
27 Language and culture
2
28 The Crown and Parliament
James I
29 Religious Disagriment
The Civil War
30 Republican and Restoration Britain
Republic in Britain
31 Restoration
2
32 Foreign Relation
Reconsidering teligious dogmas
Revolution in Scientific Thinking
33 Life in the stuart Age
Britain in the 18th century
Politics and Money
Барлығы:
2
2
2
2
2
6
апта
6
апта
6
апта
7
апта
7
апта
7
апта
8
апта
8
апта
8
апта
9
апта
9
апта
9
апта
13
апта
13
апта
13
апта
14
апта
14
апта
14
aпта
45
7
Пайдаланатын әдебиеттер:
а) негізгі
1. Тревельян, Дж. М. История Англии от Чосера до королевы Виктории. Смоленск, 2005
2. Черчилль, У. Рождение Британии. Смоленск, 2005
3. Черчилль, У. Британия в Новое время (XVI-XVII века) Смоленск, 2005
4. Feiling K. A History of England From the Coming of the English to 1918. Book Club
Associates. Trowbridge and London. 1972
5. Pugh, M. A History of Britain. 1789-2000. Perspective Publications. 2001
6. Trevelyan G.M. A Shortened History of England. Pelican Books, 1959
7. BBC-series. A History of Britain. Written and presented by Simon Schama (15 episodes) BBC
2000, 2001, 2002
.
б) қосымша
1. Аникст А. Шекспир. М., 1964.
2. Ауэрбах Э. Мимезис (любое издание).
3. Баткин Л. Европейский человек наедине с собой. М., РГГУ, 2000.
4. Бахтин, М.М. Франсуа Рабле и народная смеховая культура Средневековья (любое
издание).
5. Библия. (любое издание).
6. Горан В.П. Древнегреческая мифологема судьбы. Новороссийск, 1990.
7. Гуревич, А.Я. Категории средневековой культуры (любое издание).
8. Гуревич, А.Я. Средневековый мир - культура безмолвствующего большинства.
9. Ивашева В. «Век нынешний и век минувший…». М., 1990.
10. История английской литературы в 4-х тт. Москва, издательство ИМЛИ РАН. 19441962.
8
ОБСӨЖ – сабақтарының күнтізбелік – тақырыптық жоспары мен СӨЖ
тапсырмаларын қабылдау кестесі
050119 – «Шет тілі » мамандығы, 3 – курс, 6 – семестр. 45 сағат
№
Тақырыбы, мазмұны
1
өткізіле
тін
уақыты
№ (сабақ
кест.
сәйкес)
2
3
Сабақтар мен бақылау түрлері және
ұпайлары
Кон Пікір
Кол Гло
суль талас Үй
л.
сса
Тес
т
рий
тапс
т.
ырма тапс
сы
.
4
5
6
7
8
9
№1 Тарау.
1
Pre-Romon Britan
2
1
апта
2
The Celts
3
The Roman Period
1Changes in Empire and at
home.
2
1
апта
2
4
The Dark Ages
1
апта
2б
2
2
апта
4б
5
The Anglo Saxon Period
2
апта
2
6
The Anglo Saxon Period
7
8
Medieval Britain (Norman
England)
William II Rufus(10871100)
9
2
3
апта
2
3
апта
4б
2
2
Henry II(1154-1189)
10
Henry III(1216-1272)
2
апта
4б
2
3
апта
4
апта
4б
9
11
Misrule in England under
Edward II(1307-1327)
2
4
апта
Henry V(1413-1422)
2
4
апта
2б
From Reformation to
Restoration
Henry VII(1485-1509)
2
5
апта
Henry VIII(1509-1547)
2
5
апта
3б
Edward VI(1603-1625)
2
12
13
14
15
5
апта
16
6
апта
2б
James VI(1603-1625)
17
18
19
Republican Governmen t in
England (1649-1660)
The Ages of Empire
Preparation for Empire
Building:The Growth of
the Commons
England and the New
World:An Expanding
Empire
20
2
6
апта
2
6
апта
2б
2
7
апта
2
7
апта
3б
George I(1714-1727)
21
The American war of
Independence
2
7
апта
Бірінші аралық бақылау: 30 балл
22
2
The Growth of Empire
23
24
25
England’s Role in the
Slave Trade
Expansion of
Empire:Australia
The British India
.
8
апта
5б
2
2
2
8
апта
8
апта
5б
9
10
апта
1901:The End of an Era
England in the 20th century
Ghanges in Empire and at
home
26
27
37
38
39
40
41
42
World War (1914-1918)
Between the Two World
Wars
World War II
2
9
апта
5б
Between the Two World
2
Wars
World War II
The Post –War years
England in the 20th century
John Major and Tony
Blair
The Development of
2
Cristian Society in Early
England
Part II
Part III
The Sructure of the Church 2
in Britain
9
апта
Glastanbury Abbey
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Saxon
2
churches:TheChurch of St
Laurence
The Church Of All Saints
1Monuments and
Munimemts
2Deerhurst The Tiny Capel
of Odda’s
Monasticism in Britain
2
The Legend of Waltham
Abbey
2
Monasteries of the
Yorkshire Dales and Moors
13
апта
5б
13
апта
13
апта
5б
14
апта
14
апта
5б
14
апта
11
Екінші аралық бақылау : 30 балл
Итого:
60 б
Пайдаланатын әдебиеттер:
а) негізгі
1. Тревельян, Дж. М. История Англии от Чосера до королевы Виктории. Смоленск, 2005
2. Черчилль, У. Рождение Британии. Смоленск, 2005
3. Черчилль, У. Британия в Новое время (XVI-XVII века) Смоленск, 2005
4. Feiling K. A History of England From the Coming of the English to 1918. Book Club
Associates. Trowbridge and London. 1972
5. Pugh, M. A History of Britain. 1789-2000. Perspective Publications. 2001
6. Trevelyan G.M. A Shortened History of England. Pelican Books, 1959
7. BBC-series. A History of Britain. Written and presented by Simon Schama (15 episodes) BBC
2000, 2001, 2002
б) қосымша
1. Аникст А. Шекспир. М., 1964.
2. Ауэрбах Э. Мимезис (любое издание).
3. Баткин Л. Европейский человек наедине с собой. М., РГГУ, 2000.
4. Бахтин, М.М. Франсуа Рабле и народная смеховая культура Средневековья (любое
издание).
5. Библия. (любое издание).
6. Горан В.П. Древнегреческая мифологема судьбы. Новороссийск, 1990.
7. Гуревич, А.Я. Категории средневековой культуры (любое издание).
8. Гуревич, А.Я. Средневековый мир - культура безмолвствующего большинства.
9. Ивашева В. «Век нынешний и век минувший…». М., 1990.
10. История английской литературы в 4-х тт. Москва, издательство ИМЛИ РАН. 19441962.
.Студенттің өзіндік жұмысының жоспары және орындау кестесі
12
(45 сағат)
СӨЖ тақырыбы
1.
2.
Сағат Бақылау
саны
түрі
Pre-Romon Britan
The Celts
The Roman Period
3.
1Changes in Empire and at home.
4 The Dark Ages
1
Aуызша
Жазбаша
Ауызшажазбаша
Aуызша
1
1
Әдебиеттер
№2,7
№5,6,7
№1,2,3
№2,7
5.
The Anglo Saxon Period
1
Жазбаша №5,6,7
6.
The Anglo Saxon Period
1
Ауызшажазбаша
№1,2,3
1
Aуызша
№2,7
1
1
Жазбаша №5,6,7
Ауызша№1,2,3
жазбаша
Aуызша №2,7
1
Жазбаша №5,6,7
1
Ауызшажазбаша
№1,2,3
1
Aуызша
№2,7
1
Medieval Britain (Norman
England)
8. William II Rufus(1087-1100)
7.
9.
Henry II(1154-1189)
10 Henry III(1216-1272)
11
Misrule in England under Edward
II(1307-1327)
12 Henry V(1413-1422)
From Reformation to Restoration
Henry VII(1485-1509)
14 Henry VIII(1509-1547)
13
1
15 Edward VI(1603-1625)
1
16 James VI(1603-1625)
1
Жазбаша №5,6,7
Ауызша№1,2,3
жазбаша
Aуызша №2,7
1
Жазбаша №5,6,7
1
Ауызшажазбаша
№1,2,3
1
Aуызша
№2,7
1
Жазбаша №5,6,7
Ауызша№1,2,3
жазбаша
Republican Governmen t in
England (1649-1660)
The Ages of Empire
Preparation for Empire
18
Building:The Growth of the
Commons
England and the New World:An
19
Expanding Empire
20 George I(1714-1727)
17
21 The American war of Independence
1
22
2
Бірінші аралық бақылау: 30
Aуызша
Өтілетін күні
№2,7
13
балл
23 The Growth of Empire
2
24 England’s Role in the Slave Trade
2
25 Expansion of Empire:Australia
2
Жазбаша №5,6,7
Ауызша№1,2,3
жазбаша
Aуызша №2,7
2
Жазбаша №5,6,7
2
Ауызшажазбаша
№1,2,3
2
Aуызша
№2,7
2
Жазбаша №5,6,7
2
Ауызшажазбаша
№1,2,3
2
Aуызша
№2,7
2
Жазбаша №5,6,7
2
Ауызшажазбаша
The British India
1901:The End of an Era
26 England in the 20th century
Ghanges in Empire and at home
World War (1914-1918)
Between the Two World Wars
27
World War II
Between the Two World Wars
World War II
28 The Post –War years
England in the 20th century
John Major and Tony Blair
The Development of Cristian
Society in Early England
29
Part II
Part III
The Sructure of the Church in
Britain
30 Glastanbury Abbey
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Saxon churches:TheChurch of St
31
Laurence
The Church Of All Saints
1Monuments and Munimemts
32
2Deerhurst The Tiny Capel of
Odda’s
Monasticism in Britain
33
The Legend of Waltham Abbey
Барлығы
№1,2,3
45
Ескерту:
14
Студенттердің білімін бақылау, бағалау – СӨЖ – есептері, жаттығулар, тестілік бақылау (Т),
рефераттар (Р), глоссарий (Г), коллоквиум (К) – оқытушыға тапсыру кестесі: әр аптада:
сейсенбі – 1500 – 1700 – 16 ауд
сәрсенбі - 1600 – 1800 – 16 ауд
Пайдаланатын әдебиеттер:
а) негізгі
1. Тревельян, Дж. М. История Англии от Чосера до королевы Виктории. Смоленск, 2005
2. Черчилль, У. Рождение Британии. Смоленск, 2005
3. Черчилль, У. Британия в Новое время (XVI-XVII века) Смоленск, 2005
4. Feiling K. A History of England From the Coming of the English to 1918. Book Club
Associates. Trowbridge and London. 1972
5. Pugh, M. A History of Britain. 1789-2000. Perspective Publications. 2001
6. Trevelyan G.M. A Shortened History of England. Pelican Books, 1959
7. BBC-series. A History of Britain. Written and presented by Simon Schama (15 episodes) BBC
2000, 2001, 2002
б) қосымша
1. Аникст А. Шекспир. М., 1964.
2. Ауэрбах Э. Мимезис (любое издание).
3. Баткин Л. Европейский человек наедине с собой. М., РГГУ, 2000.
4. Бахтин, М.М. Франсуа Рабле и народная смеховая культура Средневековья (любое
издание).
5. Библия. (любое издание).
6. Горан В.П. Древнегреческая мифологема судьбы. Новороссийск, 1990.
7. Гуревич, А.Я. Категории средневековой культуры (любое издание).
8. Гуревич, А.Я. Средневековый мир - культура безмолвствующего большинства.
9. Ивашева В. «Век нынешний и век минувший…». М., 1990.
10. История английской литературы в 4-х тт. Москва, издательство ИМЛИ РАН. 19441962.
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БІРІНШІ АРАЛЫҚ БАҚЫЛАУ
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2
Тақырыптар
The Celts
The Dark Ages
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Реті
Ұпайлар
Бақылау
түрі
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The Anglo Saxon Period
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William II Rufus(10871100)
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Henry III(1216-1272)
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Henry V(1413-1422)
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Henry VIII(1509-1547)
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James VI(1603-1625)
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The Ages of Empire
Preparation for Empire
Building:The Growth of the
Commons
George I(1714-1727)
6-апта
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Пikiр талас
7-апта
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ОБСӨЖ 30 ұпай
16
СРСП-1
Pre-Roman Britain
Though the scribes that accompanied the Roman invaders of Britain gave us the first written
history of the land that came to be known as England, its history had already been writ large in
its ancient monuments and archeological findings. Present-day Britain is riddled with evidence
of its long past, of the past that the Roman writers did not record, but which is etched in the
landscape. Looking out on the green and cultivated land, where it is not disfigured by the
inevitable cities and towns and villages of later civilizations -- those dark Satanic mills so
loathed by William Blake -- he can see what seem to be anomalies on the hillsides -- strange
bumps and mounds; remains of terraced or plowed fields; irregular slopes that bespeak ancient
hill forts; strangely carved designs in the chalk; jagged teeth of upstanding megaliths; stone
circles of immense breadth and height and ancient, mysterious wells and springs.Man lived in
what we now call the British Isles long before it broke away from the continent of Europe, long
before the great seas covered the land bridge that is now known as the English Channel, that
body of water that protected this island for so long, and that by its very nature, was to keep it out
of the maelstrom that became medieval Europe. Thus England's peculiar character as an island
nation came about through its very isolation. Early man came, settled, farmed and built. His
remains tell us much about his lifestyle and his habits. Of course, the land was not then known as
England, nor would it be until long after the Romans had departed.
We know of the island's early inhabitants from what they left behind on such sites as Clacton-onSea in Essex, and Swanscombe in Kent, gravel pits, the exploration of which opened up a whole
new way of seeing our ancient ancestors dating back to the lower Paleolithic (early Stone Age).
Here were deposited not only fine tools made of flint, including hand-axes, but also a fossilized
skull of a young woman as well as bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, cave-bears, lions, horses,
deer, giant oxen, wolves and hares. From the remains, we can assume that man lived at the same
time as these animals which have long disappeared from the English landscape.
So we know that a thriving culture existed around 8,000 years ago in the misty, westward islands
the Romans were to call Britannia, though some have suggested the occupation was only
seasonal, due to the still-cold climate of the glacial period which was slowly coming to an end.
As the climate improved, there seems to have been an increase in the number of people moving
into Britain from the Continent. They were attracted by its forests, its wild game, abundant rivers
and fertile southern plains. An added attraction was its relative isolation, giving protection
against the fierce nomadic tribesmen that kept appearing out of the east, forever searching for
new hunting grounds and perhaps, people to subjugate and enslave.
The Neolithic Age
The new age of settlement took place around 4,500 BC, in what we now term the Neolithic Age.
Though isolated farmhouses seem to be the norm, the remarkable findings at Skara Brae and
Rinyo in the Orkneys give evidence of settled, village life. In both sites, local stone was used
extensively to make interior walls, beds, boxes, cupboards and hearths. Roofs seem to have been
supported by whale bone, more plentiful and more durable than timber. Much farther south, at
Carn Brea in Cornwall, another Neolithic village attests to a lifestyle similar to that enjoyed at
Skara Brae, except in the more fertile south, agriculture played a much larger part in the lives of
the villagers. Animal husbandry was practiced at both sites.
Very early on, farming began to transform the landscape of Britain from virgin forest to
ploughed fields. An excavated settlement at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire shows us that its early
inhabitants kept cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and dogs. They also cultivated various kinds of wheat
and barley, grew flax, gathered fruits and made pottery. They buried their dead in long barrows - huge elongated mounds of earth raised over a temporary wooden structure in which several
bodies were laid. These long barrows are found all over Southern England, where fertile soil
allied to a flat, or gently rolling landscape greatly aided settlement.
17
To clear the forests, it is obvious that stone-axes of a sophisticated design were produced in great
numbers. Many of these axes were obtained by trading with other groups or by mining highquality flint. Both activities seem to have been wide-spread, as stone-axes appear in many areas
away from the source of their manufacture. At Grimes Graves, in Norfolk (in the eastern half of
Britain), great quantities of flint were mined by miners working deep hollowed-out shafts and
galleries in the chalk.
At the same time the Windmill people practiced their way of life and other farming people were
introducing decorated pottery and different shaped tools to Britain. The cultures may have
combined to produce the striking Megalithic monuments, the burial chambers and the henges.
The tombs consisted of passage graves, in which a long narrow passage leads to a burial chamber
in the very middle of the mound; and gallery graves, in which the passage is wider, divided by
stone partitions making stall-like compartments. Some of these tombs were built of massive
blocks of stone standing upright as walls, with other huge blocks laid across horizontally to make
a roof. They were then covered with earthen mounds which have in many cases, completely
eroded. One of the most impressive of these tombs is New Grange in Ireland. They are the oldest
manmade stone structures known, older than the great Pyramids of Egypt.
Sometime in the early to middle Neolithic period, groups of people began to build camps or
enclosures in valley bottoms or on hilltops. Perhaps these were originally built to pen cattle and
later used for defense, settlement or simply meeting places for trading.
Perhaps they were built for religious purposes. Soon, these enclosures began to evolve into more
elaborate sites that may have been used for religious ceremonies, perhaps even for studying the
night stars so that sowing, planting and harvesting could be done at the most propitious times of
the year. Whatever their purpose, we call these sites, most of which are circular or semi-circular
in pattern, henges. They include banks and ditches; the most impressive, at Avebury, in
Wiltshire, had a ditch 21 metres in width, and 9 metres deep in places.
Many of the timber posts that defined these henges have long disappeared, but many sites still
contain circles of pits, central stones, cairns or burials and clearly defined stone or timber
entrances. It was not too long before stone circles began to dot the landscape, spanning the
period between the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Ages (c 3370 - 2679 BC). Outside these
circles were erected the monoliths, huge single standing stones that may have been aligned on
the rising or setting sun at midsummer or midwinter. Some of these, such as the groups of circles
known as the Calva group in present day Scotland, were also used for burials and burial
ceremonies. Henges seem to have been used for multiple purposes, justifying the enormous
expenditure of time and energy to construct them.
The arrival of the so-called "Beaker people" named after the shape of their most characteristic
pottery vessel, brought the first metal-users to the British Isles. Perhaps they used their beakers
to store beer, for they grew barley and knew how to brew beer from it. At the time of their arrival
in Britain, they seem to have mingled with another group of Europeans we call the "Battle-axe
people," who had domesticated the horse, used wheeled carts and smelted and worked copper.
They also buried their dead in single graves, often under round barrows. They also may have
introduced a language into Britain derived from Indo-European.
Prehistoric Earthworks and the "Wessex Culture"
The two groups seem to have blended together to produce the cult in Southern England that we
call the 'Wessex Culture.' They were responsible for the enormous earthwork called Silbury Hill,
the largest manmade mound in prehistoric Europe. Silbury is 39 metres high and was built as a
series of circular platforms; their purpose still unknown. Nearby is the largest henge of all,
Avebury, consisting of a vast circular ditch and bank, an outer ring of one hundred standing
stones and two smaller inner rings of stones. Outside the monument was a mile-long avenue of
standing stones.
18
Stonehenge, in the same general area as Silbury and Avebury, is perhaps the most famous,
certainly the most visited and photographed of all the prehistoric monuments in Britain. We can
only guess at the amount of labor involved in its construction, at the enormous complexity of the
task which included transporting the inner blue-stones from the Preseli Hills in Wales and
erecting of the great lintelled circle and horseshoe of large sarsen stones, shaped and dressed.
The architectural sophistication of the monument bears witness to the tremendous technological
advances being made at the time of the arrival of the Bronze Age.
Grave goods also attest to the sophistication of the Wessex culture: These include well-made
stone battle axes, but also metal daggers with richly decorated hilts, precious ornaments of gold
or amber, as well as gold cups, amulets, even a sceptre with a polished mace-head at one end. To
make bronze, tin came from Cornwall; gold came from Wales, and products made from these
metals were traded freely both within the British Isles and with peoples on the continent of
Europe. Bronze was used to make cauldrons and bowls, shields and helmets, weapons of war,
and farming tools. It was at this time that the Celtic peoples arrived in the islands we now call
Britain
.
СРСП-2
The Celts
Before the arrival of the Celts in Britain, iron-working had begun in the Hittite Empire, of Asia
Minor. Those who practiced the trade kept it a closely guarded secret, but shortly after 1200 BC,
the Hittites were overthrown and knowledge of the miracle metal began to leak out. In Central
Europe, a culture known as "Urnfield" developed and prospered. It quickly adapted the ironworking culture known as "Hallstatt," after a site in Austria.
One of the most significant elements in the new culture was the system of burial. Important
people were buried along with their most precious possessions in timber built chambers under
earthen barrows. The Hallstatt people were highly-skilled craftsmen, who used iron, bronze and
gold, and produced fine burnished pottery. At some time they reached the British Isles and their
culture began to infiltrate those foggy, wet, but mineral-rich islands off the Continent.
From their contact with Mediterraneans, the Hallstatt people had advanced their technology and
culture developing into what is called "La Tene" after a site in Switzerland. The La Tene style,
with its production of beautiful, handsomely-made and decorated articles, came into existence
around the middle of the fifth century BC. It was produced by the Celts, the first people in the
islands of Britain whose culture and language survive in many forms today.
Of the Celtic peoples, Hermann Noelle wrote:
The Celtic culture as a whole, developing very early on about 1000 BC, and reaching its finest
expression around 500 BC, is a fundamental part of Europe's past. This is not to underrate the
subsequent influence of the Latin and Germanic peoples on this part of Europe. But the Celtic
foundation was already present. Thus, European culture is inconceivable without the Celtic
contribution. Even when the presence of the Celts in their original territory is no longer obvious,
we must acknowledge the fact: they are at the root of the Western European peoples who have
made history. (Die Kelten und Ihre Stadt Manching, cited in Cunliffe, 214)
The arrival of people into the British Isles from the Continent probably took place in small
successive waves. The Greeks called these people Keltoi, the Romans Celtai. In present-day
Yorkshire, "the Arras Culture" with its La Tene chariot burials attests to the presence of a
wealthy and flourishing Celtic society in Northeast Britain. In the southwest, cross-Channel
influence is seen. Here, a culture developed that was probably highly involved in the mining and
trading of tin; it is characterized by a certain type of hill fort that is also found in Britanny. Hill
Forts
19
Hill Forts from the Iron-Age, the age of the Celts, are found everywhere in the British Isles.
Spectacular relics from prehistoric times, hill forts had as many purposes as sites. They varied
from shelters for people and livestock in times of danger, purely local settlements of important
leaders and their families, to small townships and administrative centers. Long practiced in the
art of warfare, the people of these isolated settlements were responsible for some of the finest
known artistic achievements. In addition to their beautifully wrought and highly decorated
shields, daggers, spears, helmets and sword, they also produced superb mirrors, toilet articles,
drinking vessels and personal jewelry of exquisite form and decoration.
The Celts in Britain used a language derived from a branch of Celtic known as either Brythonic,
which gave rise to Welsh, Cornish and Breton; or Goidelic, giving rise to Irish, Scots Gaelic and
Manx. Along with their languages, the Celts brought their religion to Britain, particularly that of
the Druids, the guardians of traditions and learning. The Druids glorified the pursuits of war,
feasting and horsemanship. They controlled the calender and the planting of crops and presided
over the religious festivals and rituals that honored local deities.
Many of Britain's Celts came from Gaul, driven from their homelands by the Roman armies and
Germanic tribes. These were the Belgae, who arrived in great numbers and settled in the
southeast around 75 BC. They brought with them a sophisticated plough that revolutionized
agriculture in the rich, heavy soils of their new lands. Their society was well-organized in urban
settlements, the capitals of the tribal chiefs. Their crafts were highly developed; bronze urns,
bowls and torques illustrate their metalworking skills. They also introduced coinage to Britain
and conducted a lively export trade with Rome and Gaul, including corn, livestock, metals and
slaves.
Of the Celtic lands on the mainland of Britain, Wales and Scotland have received extensive
coverage in the pages of Britannia. The largest non-Celtic area, at least linguistically, is now
known as England, and it is here that the Roman influence is most strongly felt. It was here that
the armies of Rome came to stay, to farm, to mine, to build roads, small cities, and to prosper,
but mostly to govern
СРСП-3
The Roman Period
Changes in Empire and at Home
The first Roman invasion of the lands we now call the British Isles took place in 55 B.C. under
war leader Julius Caesar, who returned one year later, but these probings did not lead to any
significant or permanent occupation. He had some interesting, if biased comments concerning
the natives: "All the Britons," he wrote, "paint themselves with woad, which gives their skin a
bluish color and makes them look very dreadful in battle." It was not until a hundred years later
that permanent settlement of the grain-rich eastern territories began in earnest.In the year
43.A.D.an expedition was ordered against Britain by the Emperor Claudius, who showed he
meant business by sending his general, Aulus Plautius, and an army of 40,000 men. Only three
months after Plautius's troops landed on Britain's shores, the Emperor Claudius felt it was safe
enough to visit his new province. Establishing their bases in what is now Kent, through a series
of battles involving greater discipline, a great element of luck, and general lack of co-ordination
between the leaders of the various Celtic tribes, the Romans subdued much of Britain in the short
space of forty years. They were to remain for nearly 400 years. The great number of prosperous
villas that have been excavated in the southeast and southwest testify to the rapidity by which
Britain became Romanized, for they functioned as centers of a settled, peaceful and urban life.
20
The highlands and moorlands of the northern and western regions, present-day Scotland and
Wales, were not as easily settled, nor did the Romans particularly wish to settle in these
agriculturally poorer, harsh landscapes. They remained the frontier -- areas where military
garrisons were strategically placed to guard the extremities of the Empire. The stubborn
resistance of tribes in Wales meant that two out of three Roman legions in Britain were stationed
on its borders, at Chester and Caerwent.
Major defensive works further north attest to the fierceness of the Pictish and Celtic tribes,
Hadrian's Wall in particular reminds us of the need for a peaceful and stable frontier. Built when
Hadrian had abandoned his plan of world conquest, settling for a permanent frontier to "divide
Rome from the barbarians," the seventy-two mile long wall connecting the Tyne to the Solway
was built and rebuilt, garrisoned and re-garrisoned many times, strengthened by stone-built forts
as one mile intervals.
For Imperial Rome, the island of Britain was a western breadbasket. Caesar had taken armies
there to punish those who were aiding the Gauls on the Continent in their fight to stay free of
Roman influence. Claudius invaded to give himself prestige, and his subjugation of eleven
British tribes gave him a splendid triumph. Vespasian was a legion commander in Britain before
he became Emperor, but it was Agricola who gave us most notice of the heroic struggle of the
native Britons through his biographer Tacitus. From him, we get the unforgettable picture of the
druids, "ranged in order, with their hands uplifted, invoking the gods and pouring forth horrible
imprecations." Agricola also won the decisive victory of Mons Graupius in present-day Scotland
in 84 A.D. over Calgacus "the swordsman," that carried Roman arms farther west and north than
they had ever before ventured. They called their newly-conquered northern territory Caledonia.
When Rome had to withdraw one of its legions from Britain, the thirty-seven mile long Antonine
Wall, connecting the Firths of Forth and Clyde, served temporarily as the northern frontier,
beyond which lay Caledonia.. The Caledonians, however were not easily contained; they were
quick to master the arts of guerilla warfare against the scattered, home-sick Roman legionaries,
including those under their ageing commander Severus. The Romans abandoned the Antonine
Wall, withdrawing south of the better-built, more easily defended barrier of Hadrian, but by the
end of the fourth century, the last remaining outposts in Caledonia were abandoned.
Further south, however, in what is now England, Roman life prospered. Essentially urban, it was
able to integrate the native tribes into a town-based governmental system. Agricola succeeded
greatly in his aims to accustom the Britons "to a life of peace and quiet by the provision of
amenities. He consequently gave private encouragement and official assistance to the building of
temples, public squares and good houses." Many of these were built in former military garrisons
that became the coloniae , the Roman chartered towns such as Colchester, Gloucester, Lincoln,
and York (where Constantine was declared Emperor by his troops in 306 A.D.). Other towns,
called municipia , included such foundations as St. Albans (Verulamium).
Chartered towns were governed to a large extent on that of Rome. They were ruled by an ordo of
100 councillors (decurion ). who had to be local residents and own a certain amount of property.
The ordo was run by two magistrates, rotated annually; they were responsible for collecting
taxes, administering justice and undertaking public works. Outside the chartered town, the
inhabitants were referred to as peregrini , or non-citizens. they were organized into local
government areas known as civitates , largely based on pre-existing chiefdom boundaries.
Canterbury and Chelmsford were two of the civitas capitals.
In the countryside, away from the towns, with their metalled, properly drained streets, their
forums and other public buildings, bath houses, shops and amphitheatres, were the great villas,
such as are found at Bignor, Chedworth and Lullingstone. Many of these seem to have been
occupied by native Britons who had acquired land and who had adopted Roman culture and
customs.. Developing out of the native and relatively crude farmsteads, the villas gradually
added features such as stone walls, multiple rooms, hypocausts (heating systems), mosaics and
bath houses..The third and fourth centuries saw a golden age of villa building that further
increased their numbers of rooms and added a central courtyard. The elaborate surviving mosaics
21
found in some of these villas show a detailed construction and intensity of labor that only the
rich could have afforded; their wealth came from the highly lucrative export of grain.
Roman society in Britain was highly classified. At the top were those people associated with the
legions, the provincial administration, the government of towns and the wealthy traders and
commercial classes who enjoyed legal privileges not generally accorded to the majority of the
population. In 2l2 AD, the Emperor Caracalla extended citizenship to all free-born inhabitants of
the empire, but social and legal distinctions remained rigidly set between the upper rank of
citizens known as honestiores and the masses, known as humiliores. At the lowest end of the
scale were the slaves, many of whom were able to gain their freedom, and many of whom might
occupy important govermental posts. Women were also rigidly circumscribed, not being allowed
to hold any public office, and having severely limited property rights.
One of the greatest achievements of the Roman Empire was its system of roads, in Britain no
less than elsewhere. When the legions arrived in a country with virtually no roads at all, as
Britain was in the first century A.D., their first task was to build a system to link not only their
military headquarters but also their isolated forts. Vital for trade, the roads were also of
paramount important in the speedy movement of troops, munitions and supplies from one
strategic center to another. They also allowed the movement of agricultural products from farm
to market. London was the chief administrative centre, and from it, roads spread out to all parts
of the province. They included Ermine Street, to Lincoln; Watling Street, to Wroxeter and then
to Chester, all the way in the northwest on the Welsh frontier; and the Fosse Way, from Exeter to
Lincoln, the first frontier of the province of Britain.
The Romans built their roads carefully and they built them well. They followed proper
surveying, they took account of contours in the land, avoided wherever possible the fen, bog and
marsh so typical in much of the land, and stayed clear of the impenetrable forests. They also
utilized bridges, an innovation that the Romans introduced to Britain in place of the hazardous
fords at many river crossings. An advantage of good roads was that communications with all
parts of the country could be effected. They carried the cursus publicus, or imperial post. A road
book used by messengers that lists all the main routes in Britain, the principal towns and forts
they pass through, and the distances between them has survived: the Antonine Itinerary.. In
addition, the same information, in map form, is found in the Peutinger Table. It tells us that
mansiones were places at various intervals along the road to change horses and take lodgings.
The Roman armies did not have it all their own way in their battles with the native tribesmen,
some of whom, in their inter-tribal squabbles, saw them as deliverers, not conquerors. Heroic
and often prolonged resistance came from such leaders as Caratacus of the Ordovices, betrayed
to the Romans by the Queen of the Brigantes. And there was Queen Boudicca (Boadicea) of the
Iceni, whose revolt nearly succeeded in driving the Romans out of Britain. Her people, incensed
by their brutal treatment at the hands of Roman officials, burned Colchester, London, and St.
Albans, destroying many armies ranged against them. It took a determined effort and thousands
of fresh troops sent from Italy to reinforce governor Suetonius Paulinus in A..D. 6l to defeat the
British Queen, who took poison rather than submit.
Apart from the villas and fortified settlements, the great mass of the British people did not seem
to have become Romanized. The influence of Roman thought survived in Britain only through
the Church. Christianity had thoroughly replaced the old Celtic gods by the close of the 4th
Century, as the history of Pelagius and St. Patrick testify, but Romanization was not successful
in other areas. For example, the Latin tongue did not replace Brittonic as the language of the
general population. Today's visitors to Wales, however, cannot fail to notice some of the Latin
words that were borrowed into the British language, such as pysg (fish), braich (arm), caer (fort),
foss (ditch), pont (bridge), eglwys (church), llyfr (book), ysgrif (writing), ffenestr (window),
pared (wall or partition), and ystafell (room).
The disintegration of Roman Britain began with the revolt of Magnus Maximus in A.D. 383.
After living in Britain as military commander for twelve years, he had been hailed as Emperor by
his troops. He began his campaigns to dethrone Gratian as Emperor in the West, taking a large
22
part of the Roman garrison in Britain with him to the Continent, and though he succeeded
Gratian, he himself was killed by the Emperor Thedosius in 388. Some Welsh historians, and
modern political figures, see Magnus Maximus as the father of the Welsh nation, for he opened
the way for independent political organizations to develop among the Welsh people by his
acknowledgement of the role of the leaders of the Britons in 383 (before departing on his
military mission to the Continent) The enigmatic figure has remained a hero to the Welsh as
Macsen Wledig, celebrated in poetry and song.
The Roman legions began to withdraw from Britain at the end of the fourth century. Those who
stayed behind were to become the Romanized Britons who organized local defences against the
onslaught of the Saxon hordes. The famous letter of A.D.410 from the Emperor Honorius told
the cities of Britain to look to their own defences from that time on. As part of the east coast
defences, a command had been established under the Count of the Saxon Shore, and a fleet had
been organized to control the Channel and the North Sea. All this showed a tremendous effort to
hold the outlying province of Britain, but eventually, it was decided to abandon the whole
project. In any case, the communication from Honorius was a little late: the Saxon influence had
already begun in earnest.
СРСП-4
The Dark Ages
From the time that the Romans more or less abandoned Britain, to the arrival of Augustine at
Kent to convert the Saxons, the period has been known as the Dark Ages. Written evidence
concerning the period is scanty, but we do know that the most significant events were the gradual
division of Britain into a Brythonic west, a Teutonic east and a Gaelic north; the formation of the
Welsh, English and Scottish nations; and the conversion of much of the west to Christianity. By
4l0, Britain had become self-governing in three parts, the North (which already included people
of mixed British and Angle stock); the West (including Britons, Irish, and Angles); and the South
East (mainly Angles). With the departure of the Roman legions, the old enemies began their
onslaughts upon the native Britons once more. The Picts and Scots to the north and west (the
Scots coming in from Ireland had not yet made their homes in what was to become later known
as Scotland), and the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes to the south and east.
The two centuries that followed the collapse of Roman Britain happen to be among the worst
recorded times in British history, certainly the most obscure. Three main sources for our
knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon permeation of Britain come from the 6th century monk Gildas,
the 8th century historian Bede, and the 9th century historian Nennius. From them, and from
archeological evidence, it seems that the Anglo-Saxon domination of Britain took place in two
distinct phases. I have hesitated to use Bede's term of "Conquest" for sound reasons.
One analogous situation with events in Britain as recorded by its English historians can be found
by looking at the history of Israel. Recent archeological discoveries in the troubled land have
cast into doubt the veracity of the Biblical accounts of the conquest of Canaan. Let's face it,
history is written by the victors anxious to boast of their triumphs, to magnify their successes,
and to denigrate the enemy. The Israelite bards and scribes certainly telescoped the events of the
gradual subjugation of the Canaanite kingdoms, transforming what modern archaeologists have
recognized as a gradual recrystallization of settled life into a great literary epic of conquest.
Referring to Israel, but in general terms, Neil Silberman wrote: "Archeology's real contribution
has been, and will continue to be, the recognition that our biblical heritage is drawn from a
complex mosaic of cultures, ideologies, and economies, and that some of our most profound
23
spiritual and cultural traditions were forged in the vibrant diversity of the ancient Near Eastern
world." As far as British history is concerned, we find English historians, especially Bede, doing
the same thing as the biblical scribes. No matter how reliable an historian, Bede's bitter prejudice
against the native Britons was honed by his religious beliefs and his praise of the English
peoples' successes in colonizing the island of Britain.
Bede (672-735) spent his life at Jarrow, in Northumbria. In many ways a trustworthy historian,
he was also a theologian. Acting as a bard of his own tribe in Northumbria, hIs intense hostility
made him a partisan witness when he wrote of the British people, for they had retained a form of
Roman Christianity which was anathema to him. He called members of the Celtic Church
"barbarians," " a rustic, perfidious race," and is thus regarded by many modern historians (but
especially Welsh writers) as a "fancy monger" especially for his account of the year of 708 that
has been slavishly followed by countless generations of English historians throughout the
centuries with nary a question. Nor do Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth escape censure,
certainly not the writers of the English Chronicle., all of whom subscribe to the notion that the
British people were driven out of their homelands into Wales and Cornwall as a result of a
catastrophic event known as "the Anglo-Saxon conquest."
The heritage of the British people cannot simply be called Anglo-Saxon; it is based on such a
mixture as took place in the Holy Land, that complex mosaic of cultures, ideologies and
economies. The Celts were not driven out of what came to be known as England. More than one
modern historian has pointed out that such an extraordinary success as an Anglo-Saxon conquest
of Britain "by bands of bold adventurers" could hardly have passed without notice by the
historians of the Roman Empire, yet only Prosper Tyro and Procopius notice this great event, and
only in terms that are not always consistent with the received accounts.
In the Gallic Chronicle of 452, Tyro had written that the Britons in 443 were reduced "in
dicionen Saxonum" (under the jurisdiction of the English). He used the Roman term Saxons for
all the English-speaking peoples resident in Britain: it comes from the Welsh appellation Saeson
). The Roman historians had been using the term to describe all the continental folk who had
been directing their activities towards the eastern and southern coasts of Britain from as early as
the 3rd Century. By the mid 6th Century, these peoples were calling themselves Angles and
Frisians , and not Saxons.
In the account given by Procopius in the middle of the 6th Century (the Gothic War, Book 1V,
cap 20), he writes of the island of Britain being possessed by three very populous nations: the
Angili, the Frisians, and the Britons.. "And so numerous are these nations that every year, great
numbers . . . migrate thence to the Franks . . ." There is no suggestion here that these peoples
existed in a state of warfare or enmity, nor that the British people had been vanquished or made
to flee westwards. We have to assume, therefore, that the Gallic Chronicle of 452 refers only to a
small part of Britain, and that it does not signify conquest by the Saxons. According to a recent
study, the Institute of Molecular Biology, Oxford (reported in Realm, March/April, 1999) has
established a common DNA going back to the end of the last Ice Age which is shared by 99
percent from a sample of 6,000 British people, confirming that successive invasions of Saxons,
Angles and Jutes (and Danes and Normans) did little to change that make-up.
Thus we have to agree with Professors John Davies and A.W. Wade-Evans that the Saxons did
not sweep away the entire population of the areas they overran. The myth was especially
promulgated by 19th century historians in their attempts to stress the essential teutonic nature of
the English people, and their attempts to disassociate what they considered to be the politically
mature, emotionally stable, enlightened English from their unreliable, untrustworthy Welsh,
Scottish and Irish neighbors who apparently shared none of the former's redeeming
characteristics.
It was not only Bede of course, who contributed to the confusion concerning the momentous
events of the years 400 to 600, for the most influential document written during the period was
that of the monk Gildas written about 540: De Excidio Britanniae (Concerning the Fall of
Britain). Here, in some 25, 000 words, Gildas gives us a sermon that pours scorn on his
24
contemporaries, the kings of Britain. He tells us that the coming of the Saxons was an act of God
to punish the native Britons for their sins. As we discover from reading Gildas, there is a great
lack of reliable written evidence from the period, and we have to turn to literature to inform
ourselves of its important events, literature written before Bede's prejudiced history. Much of this
literature was produced in what is now Scotland.
The Britons of the North produced two great poets Taliesin and Aneirin, both of whom lived in
the area now known as Strathclyde in Scotland, but whose language is recognizable as Old
Welsh Their poems are part of the heroic tradition that praise the warrior king and his brave
followers in their constant battles against the Germanic invaders.. They also celebrate honor in
defeat. Taliesin's poetry praises the ideal ruler who protects his people by bravery and ferocity in
battle but who is mangnanimous and generous in peace. Aneirin is best remembered for Y
Gododdin, commemorating the feats of a small band of warriors who fought the Angles at
Catraeth and who were willing to die for their overlord. the poem is the first to mention Arthur,
described as a paragon of virtue and bravery. In the Annales Cambriae, drawn up at St.David's in
Wales around 960, Arthur is recorded as having been victorious at the Battle of Badon in 5l6
against the Saxons.
Another collection of stories collected around 830 that relate the events of the age is the Historia
Brittonum (History of the Britons) ascribed to Nennius. Arthur is also mentioned, as is Brutus,
described as the ancestor of the Welsh. Perhaps the most authentic of the early Arthurian
references is the entry for 537 in the Annales that briefly refers to the Battle of Camlan in which
Arthur and Medrawd were killed. Prose accounts of the enigmatic British leader are entirely tales
of fancy. It was not until the highly imaginative works of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1090-1155)
that the Arthurian romances provided the basis for a whole new and impressive tradition of
European literature.
It is the coming of Christianity, however, that overshadows the literary achievements of the age.
In most of lowland Britain, Latin had become the language of administration and education,
especially since Celtic writing was virtually unknown. Latin was also the language of the Church
in Rome. The old Celtic gods had given way to the new ones such as Mithras introduced by the
Roman mercenaries; they were again replaced when missionaries from Gaul introduced
Christianity to the islands. By 3l4, an organized Christian Church seems to have been established
in most of Britain, for in that year British bishops were summoned to the Council of Arles. By
the end of the fourth century, a diocesan structure had been set up, many districts having come
under the pastoral care of a bishop.
In the meantime, however, missionaries of the Gospel had been active in the south and east of
the land that later became known as Scotland (It was not until the late tenth Century that the
name Scotia ceased to be applied to Ireland and become transferred to southwestern Scotland)
The first of these was Ninian who probably built his first church (Candida Casa: White House )
at Whithorn in Galloway, ministering from there as a traveling bishop and being buried there
after his death in 397 A.D. For many centuries his tomb remained a place of pilgrimage,
including visits from kings and queens of Scotland.
It was during the time of the Saxon invasions, in that relatively unscathed western peninsular that
later took the name Wales, that the first monasteries were established (the words Wales and
Welsh were used by the Germanic invaders to refer to Romanized Britons). They spread rapidly
to Ireland from where missionaries returned to those parts of Britain that were not under the
Roman Bishops' jurisdiction, mainly the Northwest.. Though preceded by St Oran, who
established churches in Iona, Mull and Tiree, Columba was the most important of these
missionaries, later becoming a popular saint in the history of the Christian Church, but even he
built the nave of his first monastery facing west and not east. For his efforts at reforming the
Church, he was excommunicated by Rome. His banishment from Ireland became Scotland's
gain.
The island of Iona is just off the western coast of Argyll, in present-day Scotland. It is been
called the Isle of Dreams or Isle of Druids. It was here that Columba (Columcille '"Dove of the
25
Church" ) with his small band of Irish monks landed in 563 A.D. to spread the faith, and it was
here that the missionary saint inaugurated Aidan as king of the new territory of Dalriata
(previously settled by men from Columba's own Ulster). Iona was quickly to become the
ecclesiastical head of the Celtic Church in the whole of Britain as well as a major political
center. After the monastic settlement at Iona gave sanctuary to the exiled Oswald early in the
seventh century, the king invited the monks to come to his restored kingdom of Northumbria. It
was thus that Aidan, with his twelve disciples, came to Lindisfarne, destined with Iona to
become one of the great cultural centers of the early Christian world.
In 574, Columba is believed to have returned to Ireland to plead the cause of the bards, about to
be expelled as trouble-makers. According to legend, he sensibly argued that their expulsion
would deprive the country of an irreplaceable wealth of folklore and antiquity. He also refused to
chop down the ancient, sacred oak trees that symbolized the old druidic religion. Although the
bards were allowed to remain, they were forced to give up their special privileges as priests of
the old religion ( Some modern writers, such as Robert Graves have seen the old traditions
underlying much Celtic literature throughout the long. long years since the 6th century).
In this period, the 5th and 6th Centuries, numerous Celtic saints were adopted by the rapidly
expanding Church. At the Synod of Whitby in 664, however, the Celtic Church, with its own
ideas about the consecration of its Bishops, tonsure of its monks, dates for the celebration of
Easter and other differences with Rome, was more or less forced by majority opinion of the
British bishops to accept the rule of St.Peter, introduced by Augustine, rather than of
St.Columba. From this date on, we can no longer speak of a Celtic Church as distinct from that
of Rome. By the end of the seventh century we can also begin to speak of an Anglo-Saxon
political entity in the island of Britain, and the formation and growth of various English
kingdoms.
СРСП-5
: The Anglo Saxon Period
Commonly ascribed to the monk Gildas, the "De Excidio Britanniae" (the loss of Britain), was
written about 540. As previously mentioned, it is not a good history, for it is most mere polemic.
Closely followed by Bede, the account is the first to narrate what has traditionally been regarded
as the story of the coming of the Saxons to Britain. Their success, regarded by Gildas as God's
vengeance against the Britons for their sins, was a theme repeated by Bede isolated in his
monastery in the north. We note, however, that Gildas made the statement that, in his own day,
the Saxons were not warring against the Britons. We can be certain that the greater part of the
pre-English inhabitants of England survived, and that a great proportion of present-day England
is made up of their descendants.To answer the question how did the small number of invaders
come to master the larger part of Britain? John Davies gives us part of the answer: the regions
seized by the newcomers were mainly those that had been most thoroughly Romanized, regions
where traditions of political and military self-help were at their weakest. Those who chafed at the
administration of Rome could only have welcomed the arrival of the English in such areas as
Kent and Sussex, in the southeast.
Another compelling reason cited by Davies is the emergence in Britain of the great plague of the
sixth century from Egypt that was particularly devastating to the Britons who had been in close
contact with peoples of the Mediterranean. Be that as it may, the emergence of England as a
nation did not begin as a result of a quick, decisive victory over the native Britons, but a result of
26
hundreds of years of settlement and growth, more settlement and growth, sometimes peaceful,
sometimes not. If it is pointed out that the native Celts were constantly warring among
themselves, it should also be noted that so were the tribes we now collectively term the English,
for different kingdoms developed in England that constantly sought domination through
conquest. Even Bede could pick out half a dozen rulers able to impose some kind of authority
upon their contemporaries.
So we see the rise and fall of successive English kingdoms during the seventh and eighth
centuries: Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. Before looking at political developments,
however, it is important to notice the religious conversion of the people we commonly call
Anglo-Saxons. It began in the late sixth century and created an institution that not only
transcended political boundaries, but created a new concept of unity among the various tribal
regions that overrode individual loyalties.
In 597, St. Augustine was sent to convert the pagan English by Pope Gregory, who was anxious
to spread the Gospel, and enhance papal prestige by reclaiming former territories of Rome.
Augustine received a favorable reception in the kingdom of Ethelbert, who had married Bertha,
daughter of the Merovingian King and a practicing Christian. Again, it is to Bede that we owe
the story of the conversion of England to the new faith (the older Roman Christian Church
remained in parts of Britain, notably Wales and Scotland as the Celtic Church). Augustine's
success in converting a large number of people led to his consecration as bishop by the end of
the year.
Pope Gregory had drawn up a detailed plan for the administration of the Church in England.
There were to be two archbishops, London and York (each to have 12 bishops). As the city of
London was not under the control of Ethelbert, however, a new See was chosen at Canterbury, in
Kent. It was there that Augustine, promoted to archbishop, laid down the beginnings of the
ecclesiastical organization of the Church in Britain. It was Gregory's guiding hand, however, that
influenced all Augustine's decisions; both Pope and Bishop seemed to know little of the Celtic
Church, and made no accommodations with it.
The establishment of the Church at York was not possible until 625; the immense task of
converting and then organizing the converted was mostly beyond the limited powers of
Augustine, well-trained in monastic rule, but little trained in law and administration. Edwin of
Northumbria's wife chose Paulinus as Bishop and the See of York was established, though later
attacks from Penda of Mercia meant that only a limited kind of Christian worship took place in
the North until around the middle of the eighth century.
In 668 when a vacancy arose at Canterbury, the monk Theodore of Tarsus was appointed as
archbishop. His background as a Greek scholar meant that he had to take new vows and be
ordained in custom with the Church in the West. He then attacked his work with vigor. Assisted
by another Greek scholar Hadrian, he set up the basis of diocesan organization throughout
England and carried out the decisions made at Whitby.
When Theodore arrived at Canterbury, there was one bishop south of the River Humber and two
in the North: Cedda, a Celtic bishop and Wilfred of Ripon, who had argued successfully for the
adoption of the Roman Church at Whitby. Theodore consecrated new bishops at Dulwich,
Winchester and Rochester, and set up the Sees of Worcester, Hereford, Oxford and Leicester.
Wilfred of Ripon reigned supreme in Northumbria as the exponent of ecclesiastical authority, but
when he quarreled with King Ecgfrith, he was sent into exile. Theodore seized his opportunity to
break up the North into smaller and more controllable dioceses. Over the next twenty years
bishoprics were established at York, Hexham, Ripon and Lindsey. Theodore also re-established
the system of ecclesiastical synods that disregarded political boundaries.
One of Theodore's great accomplishments was to create the machinery through which the wealth
of the Celtic Church was transferred to the Anglo-Saxon Church. This wealth was particularly
responsible for the late seventh century flowering of culture in Northumbria, which benefitted
from both Celtic and Roman influences. In that northern outpost of the Catholic Church, a
27
tradition of scholarship began that was to have a profound influence on the literature of Western
Europe. It constituted a remarkable outbreak with equally remarkable consequences.
It all began with a Northumbrian nobleman, associated with monastic life, Benedict Biscop, who
founded two monasteries, Wearmouth (674) and Jarrow (681). Both were to play important parts
in this cultural phenomenon. Biscop made six journeys to Rome, acquiring many valuable
manuscripts and beginning what can be termed a golden age in Northumbria. Its greatest scholar
was Bede.
Known to posterity as "the Venerable Bede," the monk lived from 673-735. He entered Jarrow at
the age of seven. Never traveling further than York, he became the most learned scholar of his
time. Working in the library with the manuscripts acquired by Benedict Biscop, he added greatly
to its store of knowledge through his voluminous correspondence. His contemporary reputation
rested on his biblical writings and commentaries on the Scriptures as well as his chronological
works that established a firm system of calculating the date of Easter. Bede's greatest work was
his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation.
Bede's audience was a newly-forged nation; the English were anxious to hear of their past
accomplishments and of the lives of their great people; Bede provided them with both. His
history shows the stages by which the Anglo-Saxon people became Christian. He sifted his
evidence carefully, preserving oral traditions where they complemented his written material, and
he often indicated his sources. Abounding in anecdotes, guides for memory, his concept of
history set a new standard for future writers, though as noted earlier, his prejudices against the
Britons (Welsh) mar his work.
Before leaving the Anglo-Saxon religious scene, we must mention the enormous influence the
English Church had on the continent. Rulers such as Charles Martel and Pepin III were pursuing
aggressive policies against the Germanic tribes, and missionaries from the highly advanced
English Church were extensively recruited. Wilfred of Ripon found a new calling after his
expulsion from Northumbria, and he and others such as Willibrod carried out their conversions
with approval from Rome. The greatest of the missionaries was Boniface, who established many
German Sees from his archbishopric at Mainz. From York came Alcuin, one of the period's
greatest scholars. All in all, we can say that the Anglo-Saxon Church provided an important
impetus for the civilizing of much of the Continent. In particular, it provided the agent for the
fusing of Celtic and Roman ideas, and its work in Europe produced events that had repercussions
of profound importance.
In the meantime, events were rapidly changing the political face of Anglo-Saxon England. There
were separate kingdoms in England, settled by Angles, Saxons and Jutes whose areas, bit by bit,
extended into the Celtic regions: Northumbria in the north; Mercia westwards to the River
Severn and Wessex into Devon and Cornwall. In the southeast, the kingdoms of Sussex and Kent
had achieved early prominence.
Hengist and Horsa had arrived in Kent with a small fleet of ships in around 446 AD to aid the
Britons in the defense of their lands. They had been invited by British chief Vortigern to fight the
northern barbarians in return for pay and supplies, but more importantly, for land. The AngloSaxon Chronicle dates Hengist's assumption of the kingdom of Kent to 455 AD; and though it
also records the flight of the Britons from that kingdom to London, it probably refers to an army,
not a people. The invaders, who were Jutes, named the capital of their new kingdom Canterbury,
the borough of the people of the Cantii. Only nine years after their arrival, they were in revolt
against Vortigern, who awarded them the whole kingdom of the Cantii with Hengist as king to
be succeeded by his son Oisc.
Thus the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain was an Anglo-Celtic kingdom, peopled by
Anglo-Celts. The dynasty founded there by Hengist lasted for three centuries. However, with the
death of joint kings Aethelbert and Eadberht, it was time for other kingdoms to rise to
prominence. Only thirty years after the arrival of Hengist to Britain, another chieftain named
Aelle came to settle. The leader of the South Saxons; Aella ruled the kingdom that became
Sussex. Other kingdoms were those of the East Saxons (Essex); the Middle Saxons (Middlesex),
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and the West Saxons, (Wessex) destined to become the most powerful of all and one that
eventually brought together all the diverse people of England (named for the Angles) into one
single nation.
When Bede was writing his History, he was residing in what had been for over a century the
most powerful kingdom in England, for rulers such as Edwin, Oswald and Oswy had made
Northumbria politically stable as well as Christian. Edwin, the first Christian king of
Northumbria, was defeated by Cadwallon, the only British King to overthrow a Saxon dynasty,
who had allied himself to Penda of Mercia, the Middle Kingdom. Oswald restored the Saxon
monarchy in 633, and during his reign, missionaries under Aidan completed the conversion of
Northumbria (an account of the early Christian Church in the North can be found in my "Brief
History of Scotland," Chap. 2).
It was during the reign of Oswy (645-70) that Northumbria began to show signs of order. The
growth of institutions guaranteed permanency, so that the continuation of royal government did
not depend upon the outcome of a single battle or the death of a king. He also defeated pagan
king Penda and brought Mercia under his control, opening up the whole middle kingdom to
Celtic missionaries. Then, in 663 under his chairmanship, the great Synod of Whitby took place,
at which the Roman Church was accepted as the official branch of the faith in England. It was
Oswy's forceful backing that secured the decision for Rome.
Northumbria's dominance began to wane at the beginning of the eighth century. It was hastened
by the defeat and death of Ecgfrid in 685. The kingdom had been threatened by the growing
power of Mercia, whose king Penda had led the fiercest resistance to the imposition of
Christianity. After Penda's defeat, his successor Wulfhere turned south to concentrate his efforts
on fighting against Wessex where strong rulers prevented any Mercian domination. However,
the situation began to change in the early eighth century with the accession of two strong rulers,
Aethelbold and Offa.
Aethelbold (726-57) called himself "King of Britain." Bede tells us that "all these provinces [in
the South of England] with their kings, are in subjection to Aethelbald, king of Mercia, even to
Humber." Whatever his claims to sovereignty, however, it was his successor Offa (757-96) who
could call himself "king of all the English," for though Wessex was growing powerful within
itself, Offa seems to have been the senior partner and overlord of Southern Britain. His many
letters to Charles the Great (Charlemagne) show that the Mercian king regarded himself as an
equal to the Carolingian ruler (his son Ecfrith was the very first king in England to have an
official coronation). Offa's correspondence with the Pope also shows roughly the same attitude.
It was Offa who inaugurated what later became known as Peter's Pence (those financial
contributions that became a bane to later rulers who wished to have more control over their
finances and sources of revenue).
Both Aethelbold and Offa insisted on being called by their royal titles; they were very much
aware of the concept of unity within the kingdom of Mercia. Offa was the first English ruler to
draw a definite frontier with Wales (much of the earthen rampart and ditch created in the middle
of the eighth century, still exists). The creation of a metropolitan archbishopric at Lichfield
attested to his influence with Rome. Under his reign an effective administration was created (and
a good quality distinctive coinage). The little kingdom of Mercia found itself a member of the
community of European states. Though Offa's descendants tried to maintain the splendors (and
the delusions) of his reign, Mercia's domination ended at the battle of Ellendun in 825 when
Egbert of Wessex defeated Beornwulf.
It was time for Wessex to recover the greatness that had begun in the sixth century under
Ceawlin. Wessex borders had expanded greatly and Ceawlin had was recognized as supreme
ruler in Southern England. A series of insignificant kings followed Ceawlin, all subject to
Mercian dominance. The second period of dominance began under kings Cadwalla and Ine.
Cadwalla (685-88) was noted for his successful wars against Kent and his conquest of Sussex.
Wessex also expanded westward into the Celtic strongholds of Devon and Cornwall. Both
29
Cadwalla and Ine abdicated to go on religious pilgrimages, but their work was well done and
they left behind a strong state able to withstand the might of Mercia.
A new phase began in 802 with the accession of Egbert and the establishment of his authority
throughout Wessex. The dominance of Mercia was finally broken, the other kingdoms defeated
in battle or voluntary submitted to his overlordship, and Egbert was recognized as Bretwalda,
Lord of Britain, the first to give reality to the dream of a single government from the borders of
Scotland to the English Channel. An ominous entry in the "West Saxon Annals" however, tells
us that in the year 834 "The heathen men harried Sheppey." During the centuries of inter-tribal
warfare, the Saxons had not thought of defending their coasts. The Norsemen, attracted by the
wealth of the religious settlements, often placed near the sea, were free to embark upon their
voyages of plunder.
The first recorded visit of the Vikings in the West Saxon Annals had stated that a small raiding
party slew those who came to meet them at Dorchester in 789. It was the North, however, at such
places as Lindisfarne, the holiest city in England, lavishly endowed with treasures at its
monastery and religious settlement, that constituted the main target. Before dealing with the
onslaught of the Norsemen, however, it is time to briefly review the accomplishments of the
people collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons, especially in the rule of law.
From the Roman historian Tacitus we get a picture of the administration of Saxon law long
before they came to settle in Britain. His "Germania" tells us of the deliberation of the chiefs in
smaller matters and the deliberation of all in more important ones. "Yet even those matters which
are reserved for the general opinion are thoroughly discussed by the chiefs... in the assembly,
actions may be brought and capital crimes prosecuted. They make the punishment fit the crime."
It was not long after the conversion of the Saxon peoples to Christianity that written laws began
to be enacted in England to provide appropriate penalties for offenses against the Church (and
therefore against God). In Kent, King Aethelbert (601-04) was the first to set down the laws of
his people in the English language; his laws constitute by far the earliest body of law expressed
in any Germanic language. They show no sign of Roman influence but are more in common with
the Lex Salica issued by Clovis for the Salian Franks.
The basis of Kentish society in Aethelbert's time was the free-peasant landholder, without any
claim to nobility, but subject to no lord below the king himself, an independent person with
many rights. Throughout early English history, society seems to have rested on men of this type.
As head of a family, he was entitled to compensation for the breaking of his household peace. If
he were to be slain, the killer had to compensate his kinfolk and also pay the king. The king's
food-rent was the heaviest of the public burdens. Early on, it had consisted of providing a
quantity of provisions sufficient to maintain a king and his retinue for 24 hours, due once a year
from a particular group of villages. Long after Aethelbert's reign, the king's servants of every
degree were still being quartered on the country as they traveled from place to place to carry out
their duties.
Other Kentish laws date from the reigns of Hlothhere and Eadric, brother and eldest son of
Egbert. These were mainly enlargements of previous laws. They show a somewhat elaborate
development of legal procedure, but they also recognized a title to nobility which is derived from
birth and not from service to a king. More significant, however, is the fact that the men who
direct the pleas in popular assemblies are not ministers of the king, but "the judges of the Kentish
people." All in all, the laws show a form of society little affected by the growth of royal power or
aristocratic privilege.
Under Wihtraed (695-96), laws were set down mainly to deal with ecclesiastical matters. They
were primarily to provide penalties for unlawful marriages, heathen practices, neglect of holy
days or fast days, and to define the process under which accused persons might establish their
innocence. The Church and its leading ministers were given special privileges, including
exemption from taxation. The oath of a bishop, like those of a king, is declared uncontrovertible,
and the Church was to receive the same compensation as the king for violence done to
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dependents. Within 90 years, the Church which Aethelbert had taken under his protection had
become a power all but equal with the king himself.
By the early part of the 10th century, the government had begun to regard the kin as legally
responsible for the good behavior of its members, though respect for the kin did not mean that
the ties of kindred dominated English law. There had been earlier passages which ignored or
deliberately weakened this primitive function of kin. For example, a ceorl who wished to clear
himself at the altar must produce not a group of his kinsmen, but three men who are merely of
his own class. Mere oaths from his own family circle were looked upon with suspicion by the
authorities, and thus encroachments upon the power of the kin to protect its own members
constituted a rapid advancement of English law even before the end of the seventh century.
From the laws of Ine (688-95), the strongest king in Southern England during his long reign, it is
clear that he was a statesman with ideas beyond the grasp of his predecessors. His code is a
lengthy document, covering a wide range of human relationships, entering much more fully than
any other early code into the details of the agrarian system on which society rested. They were
also marked by the definite purpose of advancing Christianity. Not merely a tariff of offenses, it
is the result of a serious attempt to bring together a body of rules governing the more
complicated questions with which the king and his officers might have to deal. It stands for a
new concept of kingship, destined in time to replace the simple motives which had satisfied the
men of an earlier age.
Ine's laws point to a complicated social order in which the aristocratic ideal was already
important. The free peasant was the independent master of a household. He filled a responsible
position in the state and the law protected the honor and peace of his household. He owed
personal service in the national militia (the fyrd); and unlawful entry through the hedge around
his premises was a grave offense. In disputes concerning land rights, which he farmed in
association with his fellows, it was necessasry for the King and his Council to provide
settlement. The free peasant was thus responsible to no authority below the king for his breaches
of local custom.
By the year 878 there was every possibility that before the end of the year Wessex would have
been divided among the Danish army. That this turn of events did not come to pass was due to
Alfred. Leaving aside the political events of the period, we can praise his laws as the first
selective code of Anglo-Saxon England, though the fundamentals remained unchanged, those
who didn't please him, were amended or discarded. They remain comments on the law, mere
statements of established custom.
In 896, Alfred occupied London, giving the first indication that the lands which had lately passed
under Danish control might be reclaimed. It made him the obvious leader of all those who, in any
part of the country, wished for a reversal of the disasters, and it was immediately followed by a
general recognition of his lordship. In the words of the Chronicle, "all the English people
submitted to Alfred except those who were under the power of the Danes." The occassion
marked the achievement of a new stage in the advancement of the English people towards
political unity, the acceptance of Alfred's overlordship expressed a feeling that he stood for
interests common to the whole English race. Earlier rulers had to rely on the armed forces at
their disposal for any such claims.
The Code of Alfred has a significance in English history which is entirely independent of its
subject matter, for he gives himself the title of King of the West Saxons, naming previous kings
such as Ine, Offa and Aethelberth whose work had influenced his own. The implication is that
his code was intended to cover not only the kingdom of Wessex, but also Kent and Mercia. It
thus becomes important evidence of the new political unity forced upon the English people by
the struggle against the Danes. In addition, it appeared at the end of a century during which no
English king had issued any laws. Following Alfred's example, English kings, unlike their
counterparts on the Continent, retained their right to exercise legislative powers. As a footnote,
Alfred insisted that to clear himself, a man of lower rank than a kings' thegn must produce the
oaths of 11 men of his own class and one of the Kings' thegns.
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СРСП-6
The Anglo Saxon Period (cont'd.)
Though much of Alfred's collection of laws came from earlier codes, there were some that were
not derived from any known source and may thus be considered original. Showing the religious
nature of one who had once depended upon the loyalty of his men for survival, the laws include
provisions protecting the weaker members of society against oppression, limiting the ancient
custom of the blood-feud and emphasizing the duty of a man to his lord.It is now time to turn
back to the Danish (Viking or Norsemen) invasion of England, and the part Alfred was to play in
his country's defense and eventual survival. The West Saxon Annals (utilized as part of the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" that Alfred began around 890), tell us that the Vikings (also known as
Norsemen or Danes) came as hostile raiders to the shores of Britain. Their invasions were thus
different from those of the earlier Saxons who had originally come to defend the British people
and then to settle. Though they did settle eventually in their newly conquered lands, the Vikings
were more intent on looting and pillaging; their armies marched inland destroying and burning
until half of England had been taken, and it seemed as if there was noone strong enough to stop
them. However, just as an earlier British leader, perhaps the one known in legend as Arthur had
stopped the Saxon advance into the Western regions at Mount Badon in 496, so a later leader
stopped the advance of the Norsemen at Edington in 878. This time, our main source is more
reliable; the leader was Alfred of Wessex.
Much of what we know about King Alfred, the only English monarch in all history to have
received the appellation "the Great," comes from Life of Alfred by his Bishop Asser. It is a work
of incomparable worth in its account of English history. During the reign of Elizabeth I, it was
also decided that the Annals of St. Neots were also the work of Asser, and thus an authoritative
source was given to many legends concerning the English king that appeared in the Annals. The
strength of his Wessex Kingdom made it the ideal center for the resistance of Alfred to the
Danish plans of conquest.
Before Alfred, the Danes had been relatively unopposed. They came in a huge fleet to London in
851 to destroy the army of Mercia and capture Canterbury, only to receive their first check at the
hands of Aethelstan of Wessex. But this time, instead of sailing home with their booty, the
Danish seamen and soldiers stayed the winter on the Isle of Thanet on the Thames where the
men of Hengist had come ashore centuries earlier. Like their Saxon predecessors, the Danes
showed that they had come to stay.
It was not too long before the Danes had become firmly entrenched seemingly everywhere they
chose in England (many of the invaders came from Norway and Sweden as well as Denmark).
They had begun their deprivations with the devastation of Lindisfarne in 793, and the next
hundred years saw army after army crossing the North Sea, first to find treasure, and then to take
over good, productive farm lands upon which to raise their families. Outside Wessex, their ships
were able to penetrate far inland; they sailed with impunity up the Dee, Humber, Ribble, Tyne,
Medway and Thames, and founded their communities wherever the rivers met the sea.
In the West, Aethelwulf succeeded Egbert continuing his father's role as protector of the English
people. He was succeeded by Aethelred, who continued to hold his lands against the everincreasing host of the Danes, now firmly in control of Northumbria, including York. In 867, the
Danes also made incursions into Mercia and had conquered all of East Anglia. Of all the English
kingdoms, Wessex now stood almost alone. Armies under Aethelred and the young Alfred
fought the Danes to a standstill, neither side claiming complete victory, but the borders of
Wessex remained secure.
Alfred was born in 849. He became King of Wessex in 871 the year the Danes defeated a large
English force at Reading. The invaders had already shown their strength by splitting their forces
in two: one remaining in the North under Halfdene, where they settled down as farmers and the
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lords of large estates; and the other moving southwards under King Guthrum, anxious to add
Wessex to his territories. Before Alfred, the results of battles against the Danes often depended
upon chance; there was no standing army in England and response to threats without meant the
calling up of the "fyrd" or the local levies. The Danes marched westward without opposition. Not
strong enough to offer total resistance, Alfred was forced to pay tribute to buy off the Danish
army until he could build up his supporters. Taking refuge on the Isle of Athelney, he conducted
a campaign of guerilla warfare against the foreign occupiers of his kingdom; it wasn't long
before the men of Wessex were ready to reassert themselves.
The turning point took place in 878. From the Chronicle, we learn of the decisive event that took
place at Edington (Ethandune), when Alfred "fought with the whole force of the Danes and put
them to flight, and rode after them to their fortifications and besieged them a fortnight. Then the
Danes gave him hostages as security, and swore great oaths that they would leave his kingdom;
and they promised him that their king should receive baptism. And they carried out their
promises..." Wessex had been saved.
Alfred's successes were partly due to his building up the West Saxon navy into a fleet that could
not only meet the Danes on equal terms, but defeat them in battle. According to the Chronicle of
896, when the enemy attacked the south coast of Wessex "with the warships which they had built
many years before," Alfred "bade build long ships against the Danish warships: they were nearly
twice as long as the others: some had sixty oars, some more: they were both swifter and steadier
and higher than the others. They were built neither on the Frisian pattern nor on the Danish, but
as it seemed to the king that they might be most serviceable." The Chronicle also records one of
his victories in 882, though he was later defeated by a large Danish force of the mouth of the
River Stour. Alfred also fortified the key English towns.
East Anglia and Southern Mercia remained in Danish hands. In 896, however, Alfred occupied
London, giving the first indication that the lands which had lately passed under Danish control
might be reclaimed. His success made him the obvious leader of all those who, in any part of the
country, wished for a reversal of the disasters, and it was immediately followed by a general
recognition of his lordship. In the words of the Chronicle, "all the English people submitted to
Alfred except those who were under the power of the Danes." Furthermore, the city of London,
on the southeastern edge of Mercia became a national symbol of English defiance. Its capture
made Alfred truly the first king of England.
Alfred's greatness lay not so much in his defeat of the Danes but in his other major
accomplishments, of which historians write glowingly and are generally listed as four: his
uniform code of laws for the good order of the kingdom; his restoration of the monastic life of
the Church, which had been severely disrupted by the arrival of the Norsemen; his enthusiastic
patronage of the arts and learning; and the respect that he gained on the Continent of Europe for
himself and his kingdom.
Alfred's strenuous efforts to rebuild the fabric of the Church also met with great success, as
recorded by his biographer, Welsh monk Asser. He filled Church positions with men of
intelligence and learning; he increased the number of monasteries and made personal efforts to
restore learning to the English nation that are recorded in his own words in a prose preface to the
new edition of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, which he translated into English. King, warrior,
law-giver and scholar, Alfred was also responsible (with other learned men) for the translation of
Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Orosius' History of the Ancient World, as well as De Consolatione
Philosophiae of Boethius. Outside Wessex, however, most of England remained under Dane
Law, ruled by Scandinavian kings.
Had Alfred been defeated, all of England would have passed under the rule of the Danish kings;
the future identity of the English people as a separate island nation would have been very much
in question. As it was, however, the occupation of London by the King of Wessex marked a new
stage in the advancement of the English people towards political unity, the acceptance of his
overlordship expressed a feeling that he stood for interests common to the whole English race.
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The treaty with King Guthrum that followed Alfred's capture of London delineated a frontier
between England and Danes, a frontier that even today is reflected in a North-South divide. The
phrase "except those who were under the power of the Danes" is very significant, however, for it
includes all of England outside Wessex and much of Mercia. Much of the task of winning back
these lands passed to Alfred's son Edward the Elder, who became King of Wessex in 899. Before
the end of his reign, every Danish colony south of the River Humber had become annexed to
Wessex.
The Chronicle reports that the Scottish King and people, all the people of Wales, all the people in
Mercia and all those who dwelt in Northumbria submitted to him "whether English, or Danish,
or Northmen, or others, the king of the Strathclyde Welsh, and all the Strathclyde Welsh." They
all recognized Edward's authority and agreed to respect his territories and to attack his enemies.
The creation of this simple bond between Edward and the rulers of every established state in the
Island of Britain thus gave to the West Saxon monarchy a new range and dignity which greatly
strengthened its claim to sovereignty in England.
During Edward's reign, there were advances made in the administration of law, some of these in
the king's favor. For example, some of his measures strengthened royal authority; the Kings'
Writ, dating back to the time of Ine, was enforced to punish attacks on the king's dignity and
privilege. Wherever the king had enjoined or prohibited a certain course by express orders,
failure to obey made the offender liable to pay the heavy fines proscribed. Use of the Writ was
responsible for an unparalleled growth of the King's official responsibility for the enforcement of
law and order.
Under Edward, the Crown was no longer seen as a remote providence, under which the moots
(law courts) worked in independence, but as an institution which had come to intervene, to watch
over the workings of the law, and to punish those who rebeled. Edward further ordered that the
hundred courts were to meet every four weeks under a king's reeve for the administration of
customary law.
Even during the long and protracted Danish Wars, and maybe because of them, trade in England
prospered. The foundation of many new boroughs offered traders bases for their operations that
were much more secure than the countryside. Towns allowed merchants the means to establish
the validity of their transactions by the testimony of responsible persons of their own sort. On
their part, rulers were anxious to keep trade restricted to a limited number of recognized centers.
One of Edward's laws prohibited trade outside a port, and ordered that all transactions be attested
to by the portreeve or by other trusty men.
The significance of the above is clear. By the end of Edward's reign, it is probable that every
place of trade which was more than a purely local market was surrounded by at least rudimentary
fortifications. The normal "port" of the king's time was also a borough, and the urgency with
which Edward commanded traders to resort to it explained its military importance. A derelict
"port" was a weak point in the national defenses and the era saw a rapid rise in boroughs that
combined military and commercial factors.
Edward the Elder died in 924, to be succeeded by his son Aethelstan, recognized as King in
Wessex and probably in Mercia independently of his election in Wessex. He took the important
and strategic city of York from the Danes, and thus, under conditions which no one could have
foreseen, a king supreme in southern England came to rule in York. He soon extended his
influence further, and the western and northern kings of Britain and the Welsh princes came to
regard him as their lord. Though Alfred and Edward the Elder had been forced to watch the
continental scene from the outside, Aethelstan won prestige and influence in contemporary
Europe that resulted from his position as heir to the one western kingdom which had emerged in
greater strength from the Danish wars.
At the Battle of Brunanburgh in 937, the site of which has never been satisfactorily determined,
Aethelstan won a great victory for his English army over a combined force of Danes, Scots and
Irish. At his death, however, new threats faced the new King Edmund. Danish control of the five
great boroughs of Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby and Stamford -- all in the Midlands -34
created an effective barrier between Northumbria and Wessex. Edmund acted. Taking an army
north, he retook the five boroughs for the English and drove out two Danish kings from
Northumbria. In the truly Viking city of York, however, Eric Bloodaxe had set himself up as an
independent king. Wessex remained the stronghold of the English during the next twenty years
of increasing Viking attacks, but when King Edgar was slain by supporters of his brother
Ethelred, disaster came to the whole country.
Once again, the Danish fleets and armies seemed unstoppable. They were found in northeastern
England, northwestern England, Wales, Devon and Cornwall. Ethelred could only achieve peace
by buying off the Danes, a move that backfired for it only led to more raids, more slaughter and
more Danish settlement. Following the example of Alfred, Ethelred then managed to get the
Danish leader Anlaf baptized at Andover, but only at the enormous cost of the complete
depletion of the treasury of England. Anlaf could only laugh at his good fortune. Ethelred's
weakness in dealing with the Danish leaders have earned him the title of "the unready," (redeless) the one who lacked good counsel.
In a sea battle in 1000 AD, Anlaf, now known as Olaf, King of Norway, was defeated by the
Danish King Sweyn who continued his rivals raids on England, and who in turn, was offered
huge sums by Ethelred. But the Danes refused to stop their raids. Giving command of a great
army to his son Cnut, Sweyn marched on and conquered Winchester and Oxford and forced
Ethelred to flee to France, only returning to England upon the death of Sweyn in the year 1003.
More fighting continued under Edmund, who succeeded his father Ethelred by appointment of
the citizens of London, anxious to be led by one who was called Edmund Ironside on account of
his great strength. Edmund won many important victories, but the strength of the Danes forced
him to make peace with Cnut, and at Alney, it was agreed that Edmund should be King of
Wessex and Cnut of Mercia. Upon Edmund's death, that same year, Cnut became king of all
England. Formally taking the reins of power in 1017, he married Ethelred's widow that same
year.
Meanwhile, there had been important developments in the administration of English law that
would have profound effects upon the future legal system. Changing social conditions led to
Aethelstan issuing many new laws. He had to deal in legislation with lords who "maintained"
their men in defiance of right and justice. Under Edgar, who became King in Wessex in 954, a
semblance of order was restored, and England was made secure at least temporarily. It is
recorded that eight kings in Britain came to him on a single day to acknowledge his supremacy.
He was the first English King to recognize in legislation that the Danish east of England was no
longer a conquered province, but an integral part of the English realm.
Legal customs from the Scandinavian North were practiced throughout the eastern counties of
England; villages were combined into local divisions for the administration of justice. These
divisions were known as wapentakes. The word first appeared when Edgar refered in general
terms to the buying and selling of goods in a borough or a wapentake. There seems to have been
no essential difference of function between the courts of the wapentake and those of the more
familiar hundred. Under Ethelred, the wapentake court appeared as the fundamental unit in the
organization of justice throughout the territory of the five boroughs. The authority of a ruler
universally regarded as king of England was placed over the local courts.
The most interesting feature of the organization was the aristocratic jury of presentment which
initiated the prosecution of suspected persons in the court of the wapentake. In what is known as
the Wantage Code of Ethelred, one passage states that the twelve leading thegns in each
wapentake were to go out from the court and swear that they would neither accuse the innocent
nor protect the guilty. Thus the sworn jury, hitherto unknown to English law, came into being in
a most important document in English legal history. The fate of the suspect, however, was still
settled by ordeal, not by the judgment of the thegns who presented them.
The strength of the Crown, with the king becoming arbiter of the law continued during the reign
of Cnut, the first Viking leader to be admitted into the civilized fraternity of Christian Kings, and
one who was determined to rule as the chosen king of the English people as well as King of
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Denmark, Norway, and part of Sweden. It is generally agreed that he turned the part of
conquering Viking ruler into one of the best kings ever enjoyed by the English people. Ruler of a
united land, he kept the peace, enforced the laws, became a generous patron of the Church and
raised the prestige of England to unprecedented levels on the Continent of Europe. Upon his
death, he had become part of the national heritage of England, his favorite realm.
Cnut and his successors became heirs to the English laws and traditions of Wessex. At a great
assembly in Oxford in 1018, he agreed to follow the laws of Edgar; his Danish compatriots were
to adopt the laws of their English neighbors, be content as subjects of a Danish king in an
English country. Cnut ruled England as it had long been ruled: he consulted his bishops and his
subjects. He even traveled to Rome in 1027 to attend the coronation of the new Holy Roman
Emperor but also to consult with the Pope on behalf of all his people, Englishmen and Danes. He
made atonement for the atrocities of the past wrought by Danish invaders by visiting the site of
the battle with Edmund Ironside at Ashingdon and dedicating a church to the fallen. His
eighteen-year rule was indeed a golden one for England, even though it was part of a
Scandinavian empire. Cnut died in 1035 and was buried in the traditional resting place of the
Saxon Kings, at Winchester.
Chaos and confusion were quick to return to England after Cnut's death, and the ground was
prepared for the coming of the Normans, a new set of invaders no less ruthless than those who
had come before. Cnut had precipitated problems by leaving his youngest, bastard son Harold,
unprovided for. He had intended to give Denmark and England to Hardacnut and Norway to
Swein. In 1035, Hardacnut could not come to England from Denmark without leaving Magnus
of Norway a free hand in Scandinavia.
. A meeting of the Witan (King's council) met to decide the successor to Cnut. One faction,
including the men of London chose Harold Harefoot, but others, led by the powerful Godwin of
Wessex chose Hardacnut, whose mother, Emma was to reside at Winchester holding Wessex in
her son's name. Emma was a sister to the Duke of Normandy; before marrying Cnut, she had
been the wife of Ethelred. When Ethelred's younger son Alfred came to Winchester, Godwin's
fears of losing his control of Wessex, had him captured and blinded. The unfortunate Alfred
lived out his life as a monk at Ely, unable to claim the throne of Wessex.
Hardacnut arrived in England in 1040 on the death of Harold; he brought a large army with him.
He was welcomed in Wessex, where Godwin rained supreme as his representative. Prince
Edward, Alfred's older brother, sought protection at Winchester, and when Harthacnut died
suddenly, after reigning for only one year, Edward, son of Ethelred, was acclaimed as king. Thus
English kings came to rule in England once again. The uniting of the houses of Wessex and
Mercia through marriage had produced an English ruler after a quarter of a century of Danish
rule. The two peoples had blended to become a single nation.
Although the two hundred years of Danish invasions and settlement had an enormous effect on
Britain, bringing over from the continent as many people as had the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the
effects on the language and customs of the English were not as catastrophic as the earlier
invasions had been on the native British. The Anglo-Saxons were a Germanic race; their
homelands had been in northern Europe, many of them coming, if not from Denmark itself, then
from lands bordering that little country. They shared many common traditions and customs with
the people of Scandinavia, and they spoke a related language.
There are over 1040 place names in England of Scandinavian origin, most occurring in the north
and east, the area of settlement known as the Danelaw. The evidence shows extensive peaceable
settlement by farmers who intermarried their English cousins, adopted many of their customs
and entered into the everyday life of the community. Though the Danes and Norwegians who
came to England preserved many of their own customs, they readily adapted to the ways of the
English whose language they could understand without too much difficulty. There are more than
600 place names that end with the Scandinavian -by, (farm or town); some three hundred contain
the Scandinavian word thorp (village), and the same number with thwaite (an isolated piece of
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land). Thousands of words of Scandinavian origin remain in the everyday speech of people in the
north and east of England.
In administrative matters, too, there were great similarities between Saxon and Scandinavian.
First, both were military societies. The Saxon chief's immediate followers and bodyguards were
the heorth-werode, the hearth-troop, who followed him in war, resided at his hall and were
bound by ties of personal friendship and traditional loyalty. The Scandinavians had a similar
system that employed the hus-carles or house-troop (the Danish word carl being close to the
Saxon ceorl, a free man). The two people shared the tradition of government by consultation and
the reinforcement of loyalty by close collaboration between the leader and his followers. It has
been pointed out that though the separate identity and language of at least part of the Britons
lives on in Wales, the identity of the Scandinavians is totally lost among the English: the
merging of the two people was total.
Under the Saxon kings, the man who held great power under the crown was the alderman, who
assisted the king. The Danish leaders were the jarls, who became the English earls, mostly
replacing the aldermen. In addition, the old Saxon system of taxation had been inefficient to say
the least. The pressure of the Danish invasions, and the need to buy off the invaders in gold and
silver meant that the kings' subjects now had to be taxed in terms of real money, rather than the
material goods supplied formerly to the King's household. Under Ethelstan, and certainly under
Cnut, we had the beginning of the civil service. Clerks and secretaries were employed by both
rulers to strengthen and communicate authority and raise and collect taxes efficiently.
There was another very important feature of the Scandinavian settlement which cannot be
overlooked. The Saxon people had not maintained contact with their orginal homelands; in
England they had become an island race. The Scandinavians, however, kept their contacts with
their kinsman on the continent. Under Cnut, England was part of a Scandinavian empire; its
people began to extend their outlook and become less insular. The process was hastened by the
coming of another host of Norsemen: the Norman Conquest was about to begin.
СРСП-7
Medieval Britain
Norman England
Hardacnut was the last Danish king of England. He died in convulsions at a wedding feast.
Edward the Atheling, who succeeded him, was the legitimate heir of Alfred the Great. Known as
Edward the Confessor, he was perhaps one of the most misunderstood monarchs in the history of
England. Though he took adequate steps to provide for a smooth succession to the throne, events
that followed his death have spoiled his reputation as a wise, effective ruler. The circumstances
that eventually led to the arrival of William the Norman had been set in place long before 1066.
Ever since Edward's father had married Emma of Normandy in 1002, England had been wide
open to Norman influences. Edward's cousin was the father of Duke William. The young Edward
himself had been brought up in Normandy. A popular choice as king, he collaborated with the
leading earls of the country to dispossess his mother Emma of her wealth at Winchester. A
motive was provided by her support of the King of Norway's claim to the English throne, a threat
renewed when Harold Hardrada, uncle of Magnus became king of Norway in 1048. But there
were more pressing problems for Edward at home.
Godwin of Wessex was the most powerful man in England after the King, whom he supported in
the raid on the treasures at Winchester, but who tried his utmost to run the country as family
fiefdom. He plotted to have Edward marry his daughter Edith, a union to which the king
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consented to keep Godwin happy and allied in the face of continued Scandinavian threats.
Edward was double Edith's age; the marriage did not produce an heir, for the saintly king had
earlier taken a vow of chastity (a hunting accident had left him impotent in any case). Edward
wanted his Norman relatives to gain the throne of England. The handing over of power to
William became his obsession. But there were other claimants from the house of Earl Godwin
that contested the king's wishes.
From 1046 to 1051, Edward was engaged in a power struggle with the Godwins. He was forced
to take action. First, he exiled Swein, the ruthless treacherous eldest son who had abducted an
abbotress among his other nefarious deeds. He next exiled Godwin and all his sons, two of
whom joined their father and Swein in Bruges and two of whom went to join the Vikings in
Dublin. Thus temporarily freed from Godwin influence, in the pinnacle of his power, Edward
was left alone to appoint Norman bishops to many vacant English Sees. Then Godwin returned.
Civil War was averted only because the King restored Godwin and his sons to their earldoms.
Edward was also humiliated by having to purge his Norman bishops. He then was forced to
appoint Stigand, Godwin's nominee to Canterbury in place of Robert of Jumieges. Edward shied
away from provoking an all-out war with his hated enemy Godwin. He was spared a decision by
the death of Godwin on Easter Monday 1053 and the succession of Harold Godwinson as Earl of
Wessex. The enmity between the Crown and the House of Godwin continued unabated,
especially over the appointing of bishops and the leadership of the armies raised to fight
Gruffudd of Wales who had been successful in winning back many border areas previously lost
to the English. Harold himself raised an army to punish Gruffudd. But the main problem
remained, that of succession. Matters were not helped by the suspicious death of Edward the
Atheling, younger son of Edmund Ironside, who had been smuggled out of England as a babe to
escape Cnut, and who had returned in 1057. Only the king and the late Athelings' two children
remained of the ancient house of Cerdic of Wessex. By his defeat of Gruffudd in Wales, Harold
then made himself the premier military leader in England. In 1064, he visited Normandy.
The Bayeux Tapestry, woven after 1066, depicts the events leading up to the Norman invasion of
that year as well as the great culminating battle. It shows Harold receiving instructions from
King Edward, embarking for Normandy, aiding William in an expedition, saving trapped knights
in a river crossing and being knighted by the Norman Duke, to whom he swears an oath of
loyalty. Next is shown the death and burial of Edward, the coronation of Harold, the appearance
of a comet and the invasion and culminating battle.
It is highly probable that Edward did send Harold to Normandy with the formal promise that the
kingdom would pass to William upon Edward's death. Harold would thus act as regent until the
Norman leader could arrive to claim his throne. However, before the death of Edward, who had
done everything in his power to hold the ambitions of the Godwins in check and to ensure the
peaceful transition of power to William, he could not have foreseen the wave of nationalist
feeling which greeted Harold's bid for the crown.
The saintly king had completely overlooked English resentment at the ever-growing Norman
influences in their island nation. The "Chronicle" went so far as to justify Harold's seizure of
power by stating that Edward had entrusted the kingdom to him. On January 6, 1066, the funeral
of Edward and the coronation of Harold, henceforth held in contempt by the Normans as an
untrustworthy bond-breaker, took place at the newly consecrated Abbey at Westminster.
William of Normandy must have been furious. His people called themselves Franks or
Frenchmen. They had come to France centuries before as Viking invaders when their brothers
were busy ravaging the coast of England. In many ways, their new homeland was similar to the
English Dane-Law, an area also settled by invaders from the North. It had been recognized in
911 at a treaty between Charles, the Simple and Rollo, the Norwegian. Rollo had then converted
to Christianity and ruled his territory as a Duke, a subordinate of the French king. In 1002, as we
have seen, Emma, sister of Richard Duke of Normandy and a descendant of Rollo, became the
second wife of English King Ethelred.
38
The Norman invasion of England was unlike that involving massive immigrations of people
seeking new lands in which to settle and farm as marked by the Anglo-Saxon and Danish
invasions. This new phenomenon was practically an overnight affair. William's victories were
swift, sudden and self-contained. No new wave of people came to occupy the land, only a small,
ruling aristocracy.
It is tempting to surmise the path England would have taken had William's invading force been
beaten off. King Harold had taken concrete steps to enforce his rule throughout the country.
According to the account of Florence of Worcester, Harold immediately began to abolish unjust
laws and make good ones, to patronize churches and monasteries, pay reverence to religious
men, to show himself as pious and humble, to treat wrong doers with great severity, to imprison
all thieves and to labour for the protection of his people. In order to do all this, however, he first
had to reconcile the houses of Godwin of Wessex and Leofric of Mercia.
After dealing with the perfidy of his exiled brother Tostig, who had raised an army to plunder
England's coast line Harold then had to deal with far more serious threats. Harold Hardrada,
King of Norway, was raising a massive invasion fleet and William of Normandy, was also busy
raising his own army of invasion. Hardrada, wishing to surpass even Cnut as the great ruler of a
Scandinavian Empire, had failed to conquer Denmark; he mistakenly thought England would be
an easier target. He crossed the North Sea to make his landing near York. King Harold then
showed his military prowess by marching his army northwards and completely destroying the
over-confident forces of Hardrada and Tostig at Stamford Bridge.
There was no rest for the victors. Three days later, William of Normandy, with his huge host of
fighting men, landed unopposed in the south, at Pevensey. Harold had to march southwards with
his tired, weakened army and did not wait for reinforcements before he awaited the charge of
William's mounted knights at Hastings. The resulting Norman triumph depicted on the Bayeux
Tapestry shows Harold's death from an arrow, his bodyguard cut down and Duke William
triumphant.
The only standing army in England had been defeated in an-all day battle in which the outcome
was in doubt until the undisciplined English had broken ranks to pursue the Normans' feigning
retreat. The story is too well-known to be repeated here, but when William took his army to
London, where young Edgar the Atheling had been proclaimed king in Harold's place, English
indecision in gathering together a formidable opposition forced the supporters of Edgar to
negotiate for peace. They had no choice. William was duly crowned King of England at
Westminster on Christmas Day, 1066.
Had Harold Hardrada won at Stamford Bridge, England would surely have become part of the
Scandinavian Empire with all its attendant problems. Had Harold of Wessex won at Hastings,
and it was touch and go all day, then the future course of England would have been certainly
different. We can only guess at further isolation from the Continent and the making of a truly
island nation at this very early date. We do know that William of Normandy won and changed
the face of the nation forever. Not only was the land now governed by a foreign king and
subjected to a foreign aristocracy, for the next four hundred years it wasted its resources and
manpower on futile attempts to keep its French interests alive while, at the same time, becoming
part of (and contributing to) the spectacular flowering of European culture.
The Conquest meant a new dynasty for England and a new aristocracy. It brought feudalism and
it introduced changes in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, with the attendant change in the relations of
Church and State. In the early part of the 11th century, mainly under the Cluniac Order, there
had been a tremendous monastic revival in the Dukedom of Normandy. This came about as a
result of close cooperation between King and Church in what was basically a feudal society, and
one which was transferred to England in 1066 lock, stock and barrel.
William's victory also linked England with France and not Scandinavia from now on. Within six
months of his coronation, William felt secure enough to visit Normandy. The sporadic outbreaks
at rebellion against his rule had one important repercussion, however: it meant that threats to his
39
security prevented him from undertaking any attempt to cooperate with the native aristocracy in
the administration of England.
A rising at York in which the Danes also took part was easily crushed and the land harried
unmercifully in revenge. Duke William showed that he meant business; he ruled with ruthless
severity. On his absences in Normandy, he left strong, able barons to deal with any rebellions,
including powerful church leaders such as Lanfranc of Canterbury. Through attrition, in the
futile attempts at resistance, the old Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was severely depleted. The years
1066-1075 were a period of trial and experiment, with serious attempts at cooperation between
Saxon and Norman, but these attempts were entirely given up in favor of a thoroughly Norman
administration. By 1075, the only Anglo-Saxons to remain in authority were Ecclesiastes. By
1086, other than small-estate holders, there were in the whole of the land only two Englishmen
holding estates of any dimension.
By the time of William's death in 1087, English society had been profoundly changed. For one
thing, the great Saxon earldoms were split: Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and other ancient
kingdoms were abolished forever. The great estates of England were given to Norman and
Breton landowners, carefully prevented from building up their estates by having them separated
by the holdings of others. In addition, William's insistence that the prime duty of any man
holding land from the king was to produce on demand a set quota of mounted knights produced a
new ruling class in England, one entirely different from that which had been in place for so long.
This was not the Saxon way of doing things: it constituted a total revolution. The simple rents of
ale and barley or work upon the lord's manor were now supplemented by military service of a
new kind: one that had been practiced only by and thus familiar to a Norman. In such a system,
those at the bottom suffered most, losing all their rights as free men and coming to be regarded
as mere property, assets belonging to the manor. In all intents and purposes, they were no more
than slaves. In addition, further restrictions and hardship came from William's New Forest laws
and his vast extension of new royal forests in which all hunting rights belonged to the king. The
peasantry was thus deprived of a valuable food source in times of bad harvests. The most
emphatic proof that the old freedoms were gone was the remarkable survey of England known as
the "Domesday Book."
Begun in 1080, the unique "Domesday Book" (the book of unalterable judgments), was an
attempt to provide the king with every penny to which he was legally entitled. It worked only too
well, reckoning the wealth of England "down to the last pig." To determine how the country was
occupied and with what sort of people, William sent his men into every shire and had them find
out how many hundred hides there were in the shire, what land and cattle the king should have in
the country, and what dues he ought to have in twelve months from the shire.
William was also determined to find out how much land was owned by the archbishops, bishops,
abbots and earls. "So very narrowly did he have it investigated, that there was no single hide nor
virgate of land, nor indeed... one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was left out, and not put
down in his record; and all these records were brought to him afterwards." The book names some
13,000 places, many for the first time. A veritable Who's Who of the century, the "Domesday
Book" is a remarkable accomplishment indeed, packed with exhaustive detail on every holding
in the entire country and its value.
We have briefly noted the efforts to reorganize the Church in Normandy even before the
Conquest of England. William had presented his invasion to the Pope as a minor crusade in
which the "corrupt" Saxon Church in England would be reformed. Lanfranc was chosen as the
instrument of reform, an exceptional man whose work was profound As Archbishop of
Canterbury, he infused new life into the Church made moribund under such as Stigand (deposed
by William), giving it a tighter organization and discipline.
Lanfranc had been Abbot of Cannes; he was a distinguished scholar and an expert on civil law.
He had been prominent in the negotiations leading to William's marriage with the daughter of the
Duke of Flanders. A practical administrator, he and the Conqueror seemed to have a close
sympathy in aims and ideals. They agreed on the nature of the reforms necessary for the Church
40
in England, especially that the influence and intrusion of the Papacy should be resisted and that
real power should lie with the metropolitan dioceses. Asserting his authority and declaring that
England was not merely a papal fief, Lanfranc was supported by the king. He held synods
regularly, corrected many irregularities, and righted long-standing abuses. His most persistent
problem was that of clerical marriage.
In Anglo-Saxon England, the marriage of priests had been recognised. Household functions had
taken priority over Church ceremony; such marriages had been defensible from folk-law, if not
canon law. Lanfranc as a lawyer familiar with current canon law and Church law as practiced on
the Continent, introduced many new rules into England that were copied and followed
throughout the land, but they did not include marriage of clerics. One important innovation of
Lanfranc was the transfer of the seats of bishops to the new, growing towns and centers of trade.
The growing dispute between the powers of the ecclesiastical courts and the secular courts
remained a thorn in the Archbishop's side and soon came to a head in the reign of Henry II.
Apart from the cultural and political legacy of the Norman occupation, the effects on architecture
and language were also immense. The Anglo-Saxons were not noted for castle-building nor for
great cathedrals and churches. Not much remains of their building. But all over the landscape,
we see physical reminders of the Norman presence, not only in the military strongholds, which
meant a castle in just about every town, but also in the cathedrals, abbeys and monasteries that so
effectively symbolize the triumph of the new order. Everywhere in England, a frenzy of church
building took place, in which the style we call "Romanesque" dominated. On the borders of
Wales and Scotland, in particular, we see that combination of church and castle, abbey and town
that demonstrate only too well the genius of this hardy breed of seafarers, explorers, settlers,
administrators, law givers and builders who were never more than a tiny majority. But what they
built was meant to stay.
Changes in language also became permanent. The new nobility knew no English and probably
did little to learn it (in contrast to the situation on the borders of Wales where many Norman
lords freely fraternized and married local inhabitants and learned the Welsh language). Though
English continued to be spoken by the great majority, it was the language of the common people,
not those in power, a situation that wasn't to change until the 14th century.
There was still the matter of how to deal with the Celtic kingdoms of Britain, those beyond the
borders, those that were not occupied by the Saxons and where the language and customs
remained more or less untouched: Scotland and Wales. William seemed to regard Scotland as an
area best left alone. Though he claimed, as king of England, some degree of influence over
Scotland and took control of Cumbria in 1092, he did not bother to venture further north. Wales
was a different matter.
Various Welsh princes were still vying for power. The last ruler who could truly call himself
King of Wales, Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, was killed in 1063. The country was then rent by a series
of inter-family squabbles and William seized his opportunity to establish a firm western frontier
by giving away lands along the border to some of his most loyal supporters. These so-called
border barons or Marcher Lords were left free to add to their territories as they wished. Their
castles and fortified manors in all the important border towns attest to their power and influence.
The lordships of Chester, Shrewsbury, Hereford and Glamorgan kept a tight grip on any
aspirations of Welsh princes to re-assert control of their nation. Yet such was the power of the
Welsh longing to be independent and so cleverly had they mastered the art of guerilla warfare
from their mountain strongholds, that by the time of the death of William's son, Rufus (King
from 1087-1100) that Welsh control had been re-asserted over most of Wales.
Continued Welsh efforts to drive out the Normans from their border territories was of great
concern to England's rulers. In 1095, William II started sending royal armies into Wales and the
practice was continued by Henry I. The great expense of such adventures meant that an easier
way to keep Wales in check was to preserve the territories of the Marcher lordships, which
remained in existence for over four hundred years.
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In the meantime, in England, Norman Rule not only affected political and social institutions, but
the English language itself. A huge body of French words were ultimately to become part of the
English vocabulary, many of these continuing side by side with their English equivalent, such as
"sacred" and "holy", "legal" and "lawful," "stench" and "aroma," etc. Many French words
replaced English ones, so that before the end of the 14th century Chaucer was able to use a vast
store of new words such as "courage" in place of "heartness," and so on. English became vastly
enriched, more cosmopolitan, sharing its Teutonic and Romance traditions. Norman influence on
literature was equally profound, for the developments in French literature, the leading literature
of Europe, could now circulate in the English court as it did in France.
In retrospect, William's rule can be seen as harsh, but in some ways just. The king was
determined to stay in firm control, and he certainly brought a new degree of political unity to
England. Those huge, forbidding Norman castles which even today, in ruin, dominate the skyline
of so many towns and cities had the effect of maintaining law and order. Even a Saxon scribe
wrote that "a man might walk through the land unmolested," and compared to the lawlessness
and abuses which were apparent in the reign of his successor William II, the Conqueror's reign
was almost a golden age. Trouble came immediately upon his death.
СРСП-8
: Medieval Britain (cont'd.)
William II, Rufus (1087-1100)
Despite the cohesion and order brought to England by the Duke of Normandy, the new
administrative system outlived him by less than fifty years. Though William respected the
elective nature of the English monarch, perfunctorily recognised at his own coronation, on his
deathbed in Normandy he handed over the crown to William Rufus, his favorite son, and sent
him to England to Archbishop Lanfranc. He reluctantly granted the Duchy of Normandy to
Robert, his eldest, and bequeathed a modest sum to Henry Beauclerk, his youngest. There were
bound to be problems.
The dominions ruled by William lI, Rufus, were closely knit together by the family. The King of
England and the Duke of Normandy had rival claims upon the allegiance of every great landholder from the Scottish borders to Anjou. And these great land-holders, the Barons and Earls
made it their business to provoke and protract quarrels of every kind between their rulers. It was
a rotten state of affairs that could only be settled through the English acquisition of Normandy.
In addition, Norman lands were surrounded by enemies eager to re-conquer lost territories. One
of these foes was the Church of Rome itself, rapidly increasing in power and prestige at the
expense of the feudal monarchies. Both William Rufus and his successor Henry l had to deal
with problems that eventually lay beyond their capabilities to solve.
The leading Barons acquiesced in the coronation of William Rufus by Lanfranc in September of
1087, taking their lead from the archbishop but also demonstrating the immense power that was
accruing to the Church in England. The new king was an illiterate, avaricious, impetuous man,
not the sort of ruler the country needed at this or at any other time. According to William of
Malmesbury, he had already sunk below the possibility of greatness or of moral reformation. It
seems that the only profession he honored was that of war; his court became a Mecca for those
practiced in its arts; his retainers lived lavishly off the land and took what they wished from
whom they wished. To entertain his retinue, the king had a huge banqueting hall built in
Westminster.
An early rebellion was inevitable. Taking place in 1088, it was led by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, an
old foe of Lanfranc, who wished to install Robert of Normandy on the throne of England. To
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meet the threat, Rufus called upon his English subjects. He promised them better laws than they
had ever had before; the remission of all novel dues and taxes, the repeal of many aspects of the
hated forest laws. He had no intention of fulfilling his promises, but with them he was able to
raise an army of the people and defeat the scattered rebel forces. With the tide running against
him, Duke Robert quickly lost interest in the affair. Odo's army, penned up at Rochester,
petitioned for a truce and the bishop himself was forced to depart for Europe. Lanfranc's death
then removed the only person strong enough to protest against Rufus for failing to live up to his
promises. The king could now appoint any advisor of his own choosing and accordingly, Ranulf
Flambard found himself treasurer of England.
Despite the faults of William ll, England was governed well compared to Normandy, where a
constant state of anarchy prevailed and where Duke Robert was unable to control his barons who
waged private wars, built castles without license and acted as petty, independent sovereigns.
Rufus seized the opportunity to invade the province with a large force in 1090 to take vengeance
on Robert's part in the rebellion two years earlier. He was aided by Philip of France, bribed to
drop his support of Robert.
A land grab by Malcolm of Scotland in 1092 then forced Rufus back to England where he
established a stronghold at Carlisle, on the Scottish border. During the following year, the
Scottish king was killed at Malcolm's Cross by Earl Mowbray. Subsequent events in Scotland, in
which Donaldbane allied with the Norwegians under Magnus, then created a new threat to
William. Affairs in Normandy, however, took his full attention for the next three years.
In Normandy, Duke Robert decided to honor Pope Urban's call for a Crusade to win back the
Holy Land from the Seljuk Turks to allow free access to pilgrims. To raise the necessary funds,
he mortgaged his Duchy to William for 10,000 marks, a sum that could only be raised with
difficulty in an England already drained by every method of extortion that could be devised by
Flambard. The Church was particularly hit hard. "Have you not gold and silver boxes full of
dead men's bones?" asked the king contemptuously when his bishops protested.
Yet the absence of Robert of Normandy on his adventures in the Middle East meant good fortune
for the King of England. He was able to depose Donaldbane in Scotland in favor of his vassal
Edgar, subdue the rebellious Welsh princes mainly through his sale of the Earldom of
Shrewsbury to one of his Norman Barons and begin his campaign to add France to his kingdoms.
In August, 1100, however, on a hunting expedition in the New Forest, William was killed. The
throne of England now passed to his brother Henry.
Henry I (1100-1135)
Of the three sons of the Conqueror, Henry was the most able. A competent administrator at
home, he succeeded in the conquest of Normandy. Though much of the blame for the death of
his brother William was attributed to Walter Tyrrell, who fled the country, it is significant that
Henry was present in the hunting party. He wasted no time in claiming the throne, riding to seize
the treasure at Winchester just ahead of William of Bretueil, a supporter of the claim of Duke
Robert of Normandy. His supporters quickly elected Henry King of England and he was
crowned by the Bishop of London in the absence of the exiled Archbishop Anselm of
Canterbury. Henry ensured the support of his English subjects by issuing a solemn charter
promising to redress grievances, especially those involving the selling of vacant benefices to the
highest bidder.
That Henry I of England, much in the manner of William Rufus, failed to keep "the law of
Edward" as promised, did not seem to matter as much as did his success in keeping the peace. He
had the hated Flambard thrown into prison. He brought back Anselm to Canterbury, and thus
helped heal the breach between the Church and the Crown, though the big problem of lay
investiture remained, as well as Anselm's refusal to honor the appointments made by Henry
during his exile. The archbishop did mollify the situation by officiating at the popular marriage
of Henry to Edith, a descendant of Edward the Confessor and a most suitable choice as Queen of
England. Anselm wisely chose to ignore the fact that Edith had taken holy orders as a nun,
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preferring to believe that she had only done this to protect herself from importunate suitors rather
than to fulfil a desire to enter a convent.
Many of the leading Barons of Normandy who held lands in England came to Henry's court to
pay homage, though many of them preferred Robert as their lord and schemed to replace Henry
with their choice. They were aided by the ex-treasurer of England, Ranulf Flambard, who had
escaped his captors and returned to Normandy to help organize an expedition to capture the
English throne. King Henry could count on the support of his English subjects; his leading
barons would wait to see which side could benefit them most. Robert duly landed at Portsmouth
in 1101 to begin his march on London.
Losing his nerve, the Duke decided to treaty instead of fight, accepting a pension of 3,000 marks
and a promise of help to recover his rebellious dependency of Maine. The terms of the Treaty of
Alton, needless to say, were never honored by Henry, who immediately began to punish those
barons who had sided with Robert. It took all of England's resources to deal with the ensuing
rebellion of the powerful house of Montgomery, aided by the Welsh princes. Henry promised
South Wales to Lorwerth ap Bleddyn, forcing the Montgomerys to negotiate for peace. Henry
was uncompromising, however, and stripped Robert, Arnulf and Roger of all their holdings in
England. The king was now supreme in his rule, free from any serious rival. He could now turn
his attention to withholding royal authority from the encroachments of the Church in Rome,
growing ever more ambitious under a series of able popes.
For the king, the customs of the realm of England took precedence over the claims of the
Church. In this, he was aided by Gerard the Archbishop of York, who argued that the Mother of
Churches was Jerusalem, not Rome, and that the Papacy was an institution of merely human
ordinance. Predating Wycliffe, Gerard argued that the Scriptures alone could give religious
instruction; there was no need to have the will of God expounded by a Pope. Kings were
ordained by God to rule the Church no less than the State.
The struggle between Anselm and Henry was abetted by the new Pope Paschal; all three were
obdurate, with the English archbishop even moving to France unable to satisfy his king. In the
meantime, Henry appropriated Church revenues and enacted measures that led the bishops to beg
for Anselm's return. Continued trouble with Normandy, however, put the Church-Crown struggle
temporarily on hold.
Normandy had become a Mecca for just about all of those opposed Henry of England, who now
resolved to dispossess his brother. He started by bribing the Count of Flanders and the King of
France to transfer their allegiance. The conquest of Normandy began in the spring of 1105,
climaxing in the one-hour battle at Tinchebrai when Robert surrendered. Normandy now
belonged to Henry, King of England. Thus the English soldiers, who had formed a large part of
Henry's army, could now say that the Battle of Hastings was avenged. Robert was held captive in
Cardiff Castle in Wales to spend the remainder of his life a closely-guarded prisoner.
Henry could now introduce into the anarchy that had been Normandy some of the order and
economy that he had established in England. His one great mistake was to entrust the infant son
of Robert, William the Clito, to the charge of one who would later raise a rebellion against him,
and for twenty years, the policies of Henry and his Norman possessions was determined by those
who continued to plot against him.
Back in England, the Church-Crown struggle continued; fear of excommunication led the King
to finally agree to a compromise with Anselm. Henry renounced the right of investing prelates,
but would continue to receive their homage for their temporal possessions and duties. The treaty,
nonetheless, did nothing to settle the question of the English Church's longed-for independence
from the Crown. But it left Henry at the pinnacle of his power. The death of Anselm meant that
the King could appoint a successor more favorable to his own views.
Flambard, restored to Durham, remained too unpopular to cause any trouble for the king. In
addition, Henry kept in check the powers and ambitions of the great Barons by judiciously
exercising his feudal rights. He prohibited the custom of private war, forbade the building of
44
castles or fortified dwellings without his license and insisted that every under-tenant regard the
King as his chief lord. Above all, he insisted on the rule of law.
When Henry first acceded to the throne, there had been different laws for different folks
according to where they resided, for example, West Saxons were treated differently from
Mercians. But the King's Court, the "Curia Regis" of Henry, refused to recognize these
differences. The rule was that the law of the King's Court must stand above all other law and was
the same for all. The king's justices travelled into the shires to see that his mandate was carried
out. Before Henry died, the most distinctive of the old provincial differences had disappeared.
From all the varying tribes that dwelled in England, with their mutually incomprehensible
dialects and varying legal customs and traditions, a new nation was being forged out of the
common respect for the King's writ, out of their submission to and increasing attachment to the
same principles of law and their trust in the monarchy to protect them against oppression. Henry,
the "Lion of Justice" thus propelled his English possessions towards a sense of national unity
totally lacking in other lands. However, trouble returned upon the king's death in 1135.
Return to Anarchy: Stephen (1135-1154)
The order of Henry l's reign soon disintegrated under his successor Stephen of Blois. Events had
started in 1128 when Geoffrey the Fair, nicknamed Plantagenet on account of a sprig of broom
(genet) he wore in his cap, and soon to be the Count of Anjou, married the Empress Matilda,
daughter and designated heiress of Henry, King of England and Duke of Normandy. When
Henry died and his nephew and favorite Stephen seized the throne and the dukedom, the houses
of Anjou and Blois began their long struggle for control of both. Briefly, in this struggle, Matilda
concentrated on England and Count Geoffrey on Normandy, where he became Duke in 1144.
Events reluctantly forced Stephen to acknowledge Geoffrey in his Dukedom as well as Matilda's
son Henry as heir to his English throne.
Stephen gained early notoriety by running away from Antioch during the First Crusade. He later
more than made up for this at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141 when he fought on foot long after
much of his army had fled, wearing out a battle axe and a sword before being captured. His
adherence to the code of chivalry led him to give safe conduct to Matilda, entirely at his mercy,
to her brother's castle at Bristol, a grievous error. Matilda, as wife of Geoffrey, had a secure base
in Anjou and later in Normandy and Stephen was made to pay dearly for his act of benevolence
(or stupidity).
In 1126, Stephen, one of the wealthiest of the Anglo-Norman landholders, had taken an oath to
accept the succession of Matilda, an oath he quickly forgot when he seized the treasury at
Winchester and had himself crowned King. Acceptance of his Dukedom quickly followed from
the Norman barons and early in 1136, Stephen's position seemed secure. Even Matilda's half
brother, Earl Robert of Gloucester paid him homage at his Easter Court. Then it all unraveled for
this good knight who was also, in the words of chronicler Walter Map, a fool. His courtesy and
chivalry were not matched by efficacy in governing, and his political blunders were legion.
Prominent features of his reign, accordingly, were civil wars and local disturbances.
The war of succession began when Matilda's uncle, David, King of Scotland invaded England on
her behalf in 1135. It was under the rule of David, the ninth son of Malcom III, that Norman
influence began to percolate through much of southern Scotland. David was also Prince of
Cumbria, and through marriage Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon. Brother-in-law to the
King of England, he was raised and educated in England by Normans who "polished his manners
from the rust of Scottish barbarity." In Scotland, he distributed large estates to his AngloNorman cronies who also took over important positions in the Church. Into the Lowlands he
introduced a feudal system of land ownership, founded on a new, French-speaking AngloNorman aristocracy that remained aloof from the majority of the Gaelic-speaking Celtic
population.
It is to David that Scotland's future as an independent kingdom can be traced. When conflict
arose between the new (and weak) English King Stephen and the Empress Matilda, David took
the opportunity to reassert old territorial claims to the border lands, including Cumbria. At the
45
Treaty of Durham in 1136, he retained Carlisle (which he had earlier seized). His invasion of
England took him into Yorkshire. However, fierce resistance, to what has been called his
needless, gleeful violence led to his defeat at Northallerton in the "Battle of the Standard." Yet,
due mainly to Stephen's troubles, the Scottish king was able to gain practically all of
Northumbria at a second treaty of Durham in 1139. At David's death in 1153, the kingdom of
Scotland had been extended to include the Modern English counties of Northumberland,
Cumberland and Westmoreland, territories that were in future to be held by the kings of
Scotland.
In the meantime, Matilda landed at Arundel in 1139 with a large army. Stephen was captured at
the battle of Lincoln in 1141, when his Barons deserted him, only to be exchanged for Robert of
Gloucester after Matilda had incurred the enmity of the citizens of London, and the Queen had
raised an army to defend the city. Despite Matilda's being proclaimed "Domina Anglorum" at
Winchester, the civil wars continued intermittently, with Matilda and her supporters firmly
entrenched in the West country, normally on the defensive, often desperately close to being
defeated, but Stephen ultimately was unable to dislodge them.
The wars of succession in England, caused by Stephen's failure to recognize Matilda as rightful
monarch, were not happy times. Both armies relied heavily on foreign mercenaries, anxious to
set up their own private fiefdoms in England and on occasion, managing to do so. In contrast to
the peace of Henry's reign, the English countryside now suffered the sad consequences of an
unremitting struggle with lawless armies on the rampage and barons paying off old scores.
Matilda, finally despairing at her failure to dislodge Stephen, left for Normandy, never to return.
A more successful campaign was then carried out by Matilda's son Henry, beginning in 1153.
When his eldest son Eustace died the same year, Stephen agreed to a compromise. He was to
continue as king so long as he lived and to receive Henry's homage. In turn, Henry was to be
recognized as rightful heir. In the meantime, complete anarchy prevailed in which the functions
of central government quickly broke down. Fragmentation and decentralization were the order of
the day. The situation called out desperately for a strong able ruler. Henry II came along just in
time.
СРСП-9
Medieval Britain (cont'd.)
Henry II (1154-1189)
Henry had become Duke of Normandy in 1150 and Count of Anjou after his father's death in
1151. When he married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, he ruled her duchy as well, thus becoming
more powerful than his lord, King Louis of France. Eleanor had been divorced from Louis VII
after her spell of adultery with her Uncle Raymond of Antioch, notwithstanding the efforts of the
Pope to keep the marriage whole. She was several years older than Henry, but she was
determined on the union and made all the initial overtures. The turbulent marriage of the able,
headstrong, ambitious Henry to an older woman, equally ambitious and proud, was famous for
its political results.
King Louis, fearful of his loss of influence in France, made war on the couple, joined by Henry's
younger brother Geoffrey who claimed the inheritance of Anjou. Their feeble opposition,
however, was easily overcome and Henry acquired a vast swathe of territory in France from
Normandy through Anjou to Aquitaine. The stage was set for the greatest period in Plantagenet
history.
46
In England, Stephen was unable to garner the support he needed from his Barons, fearful that a
victory for either side would be followed by a massive confiscation of lands. He had quarreled
with his Archbishop of Canterbury in 1147, and the Church had consequently refused to
recognize his son Eustace as his heir. After Eustace's premature death in 1154, when Stephen
was forced to meet Henry at Wallingford, the great Barons decided to shift any allegiance away
from the King of England to the one he was more or less forced to acknowledge as his successor.
Henry was duly crowned with general English acclaim. The problems of succession did not go
away, however, for the union of Henry and Eleanor produced four sons, all thirsty for power and
not averse to any means whatsoever to get it, even if it meant allying with Louis VII and Philip ll
of France against their father.
In the meantime, however, Henry ll was making his mark as one of the most powerful rulers in
Europe. His boundless energy was the wonder of his chroniclers; his court had to rush like mad
to keep up with his constant travels and hunting expeditions. But he was also a scholar and
Churchman, founding and endowing many religious houses, though he was castigated for
keeping many bishoprics vacant to enjoy their revenues for himself. To posterity, he left a legacy
of shrewd decisions in the effective legal, administrative and financial developments of his
thirty-five year reign.
Leaving a greater impress upon the institutions of England than any other king, perhaps Henry's
greatest accomplishment was to take the English system of law, much of it rooted in AngloSaxon custom, a cumbersome, complex and slow accumulation of procedures, and turn it into an
efficient legal system closely presided over by the royal court and the king's justices. Making
much use of the itinerant justices to bring criminals to trial, Henry replaced feudal law by a body
of royal or common law. A major innovation was the replacement of the older system of a sworn
oath or an ordeal to establish truth by the jury of 12 sworn men.
Upon his succession, Henry immediately took steps to reduce the power of the barons, who had
built up their estates and consolidated their positions during the anarchy under Stephen. He
refused to recognize any land grants made by his predecessor and ruled as if Stephen had not
even existed. Any attempts at opposition were suppressed so that by 1158, four years into his
reign, he ruled supreme in England.
Henry then turned his attention to the Church, shrewdly relying on his close ally Archbishop
Theobald of Canterbury to carry out his religious policies. England began to prosper under its
able administrators closely watched and guided by their king. Particularly noticeable were the
growth of boroughs, the new towns that were to transform the landscape of the nation during the
century and that were ultimately to play such a strong part in its political and economic life.
The growth of towns, the new trading centers, was greatly aided by the stimulation of the First
Crusade that revived the commerce of Europe by increased contact with the Mediterranean and
especially through the growth of Venice. Improvements in agriculture included the introduction
of the wheeled plough and the horse collar, both of which were to have enormous influence on
farming methods and transportation. For one thing, the horse collar made it possible to
efficiently transport the heavy blocks of stone for the building of the great cathedrals. The drift
into towns meant a weakening of serfdom and the Lord's hold upon his demesne; serfs left the
land to become traders, peddlers and artisans.
Great changes in Europe also had their effects on the English political system. Motivated by
hatred and fear of the Moslems, and stimulated by the Crusades, the Italian city-states grew in
influence and prosperity. Sicily had been conquered by the Normans by 1090, opening up the
Western Mediterranean to trade. This in turn stimulated the growth of the towns, which soon led
to demands for more say in their own government and the inevitable clash with the Church, ever
anxious to protect its own areas of interest and those of the merchant classes and rapidly forming
guilds. The continuing clash between Church and King was another matter altogether.
There seem to have been three main factors in the quarrel between Archbishop Becket and King
Henry: their differing personalities, political implications and the intolerance of the age. As
chancellor for eight years from 1154, Becket was a firm friend of the king with whom he had
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been a boyhood companion. He was energetic, methodical and trustworthy, supporting his king
in relations with the Church. There was hardly any indication that the relationship of Church and
State would be completely changed upon Becket's appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury
upon Theodore's death in 1161, a position in which he now displayed the same enthusiasm and
energy as before, but now sworn to uphold ecclesiastical prestige against any royal
encroachments. Resigning the chancellorship, he began in earnest to work solely in the interests
of the Church, opposing the king even on insignificant, trivial matters, but especially over
Henry's proposal that people in holy orders found guilty of criminal offences should be handed
over to the secular authorities for punishment.
The king was determined to turn unwritten custom into written, thus making Becket liable for
punishment, but Henry's insistence that it was illegal for Churchmen to appeal to Rome gave the
quarrel a much wider significance. After Henry had presented his proposals at Clarendon in
January 1164, Becket refused to submit and his angry confrontation with the king was only
defused with his escape to exile in France to wage a war of words. He found very little support
from the English bishops who owed their appointments to royal favor and who were heavily
involved on the Crown's behalf in legal and administrative matters. They were not willing to give
up their powers by supporting the Archbishop, whose intransigence made him, in their eyes, a
fool. After six years in exile, however, a compromise was reached and Becket returned to
England.
Showing not a sign of his willingness to honor the compromise, Becket immediately
excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the other bishops who had assisted at the
coronation of Henry's oldest son. When the news reached Henry in Normandy, his anger was
uncontrollable and the four knights who sped to Canterbury to murder Becket in his own
cathedral thought that this was an act desired by the King. Instead, the whole of Europe was
outraged.
The dead archbishop was immensely more powerful than the live one, and more than Henry's
abject penance made the murdered Becket the most influential martyr in the history of the
English Church. The triangle of Pope, King and Archbishop was broken. Canon law was
introduced fully into England, and an important phase in the struggle between Church and State
had been won. Henry was forced to give way all along the line; as a way out, he busied himself
in Ireland, sending his son John as "Lord of Ireland" to conduct a campaign that was a complete
fiasco.
Taking advantage of their father's weakness, his sons now broke out in open rebellion, aided by
the Queen, though their lack of cooperation and trust in each other led to Henry eventually being
able to defeat them one at a time. For her part, Eleanor was imprisoned for the remainder of the
king's life. During her husband's many absences, she had acted as regent of England. Her
particular ally against Henry was Richard, heir to the duchy of Aquitaine. During the last three
years of Henry's life, his imprisoned queen once more began to plot against him, and upon his
death in 1189, she assumed far greater powers than she had enjoyed as his queen.
Under pressure from resistance in Britanny and Aquitaine, and possible rebellion from his sons,
aided by their ambitious, scheming mother, Henry had worked out a scheme for the future
division of his kingdoms. Henry was to inherit England, Normandy and Anjou; Richard was to
gain Poitou and Britanny was to go to Geoffrey. John was to get nothing, but later was promised
Chinon, Loudon and Mirebeau as part of a proposed marriage settlement. This decision was
strongly contested by Prince Henry and was a leading factor in the warfare that ensued between
the King and his sons. It was in Normandy that Henry fell ill; he died after being forced to accept
humiliating terms from Philip of France and his son Richard, who succeeded him as King of
England in 1189.
Richard l (1189-1199): The Warrior King
Showing but some of his father's administrative capacity, Richard l, the Lionheart, preferred to
demonstrate his talents in battle. His ferocious pursuit of the arts of war squandered his vast
wealth and devastated the economy of his dominions. On a Crusade to the Holy Land in 1191-2,
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he was captured while returning to England and ransomed in prison in Germany. But upon his
release, he went back to fighting, this time against Philip ll of France. In a minor skirmish in
Aquitaine, he was killed. That almost sums up his reign, but not quite.
Philip had been a co-Crusader with Richard, but his friendship turned to hostility when the
Lionheart rejected his betrothed, Philip's sister Alice, in favor of Princess Berengaria of Navarre.
Unfortunately, this match, consummated for purely political reasons, did not produce an heir and
left the way open for the numerous conspiracies hatched by Richard's brother John, Count of
Mortain (who had been miserly treated in the dispositions of their father, Henry II). All in all, the
reign of one called by a contemporary as the "most remarkable ruler of his times," was anything
but remarkable, unless the exploits of this violent and selfish man deserve mention. One of these
involves the conquest of Cyprus after Berengaria's ship had sheltered near Limassol and had
been threatened by the island's ruler. Richard, in fact, married his plain, but prudent bride, in that
Cypriot port.
King Richard spent all of six months in England. To raise the funds for his adventures overseas,
however, he appointed able administrators who carried out his plans to sell just about everything
he owned: offices, lordships, earldoms, sheriffdoms, castles, towns, and lands. Even his
Chancellor William Longchamps, Bishop of Ely, had to pay an enormous sum for his
chancellorship. William also taxed the people heavily in the service of his master, making
himself extremely unpopular and being removed by a rebellion of the Barons in 1191.
The most able of Richard's ministers, and certainly the most important, was Hubert Walter,
Archbishop of Canterbury, Justiciar and Chancellor. He helped keep the country more or less
stable during the absence of the adventurer king despite being grievously threatened by the
townspeople's protests against taxes and the nobles' protests against Richard's plans to establish a
standing army. The system that had been developed by Henry ll enabled the country to function
quite well, despite the occasional troubles caused by Richard's scheming and ambitious brother
John. Though Richard outlawed or excommunicated John's supporters when he returned from
overseas, he forgave his brother and promised him the succession.
One favorable legacy that Richard left behind was his patronage of the troubadours, the
composers of lyric poetry that were bringing a civilized tone to savage times and whose
influence charted the future course that literature in Europe was to take. A sad note is that
Richard's preparations for the Third Crusade against the Moslems provoked popular hostility in
England towards its Jewish inhabitants (who had been formerly encouraged to come from
Normandy). A massacre of the Jewish inhabitants of York took place in March, 1190, and
Richard's successor, John placed heavy fines which led to many Jews fleeing back to the
continent, a process that continued into the reign of Edward l, when they were expelled from
England.
Richard was fortunate to have loyal, experienced men to represent him in England, Normandy,
Anjou, Poitou and Gascony, as well as in the duchy of Aquitaine. The successes enjoyed in the
Third Crusade against the forces of Saladin, a most formidable foe, were mainly due to the
English king's abilities as politician and military leader. But his dominions were constantly
threatened by enemies, who included Philip II of France, Raymond of Toulouse and his brother
John.
It is a pity that Richard got himself captured in Germany, for he had made ample arrangements
for the government of his domains. His ransom was massive; it included his recognition of
Henry VI of Germany, son of Frederick Barbarossa, as feudal overlord of England. Nonetheless,
thanks to such as Longchamps in England, he was able to raise sufficient funds to recover all that
Philip had gained in Normandy and to keep his lands intact. He died in the siege of a minor
castle in a foolish attempt at inspecting his troops. John lost very little time in losing everything
that his brother had fought so hard to protect.
Disaster under King John (1199-1216)
There are quite a number of ironies connected with the reign of John, for during his reign all the
vast Plantagenet possessions in France except Gascony were lost. From now on, the House of
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Anjou was separated from its links with its homeland, and the Crown of England eventually
could concern itself solely with running its own affairs free from Continental intrigue. But that
was later. In the meantime, John's mishandling of his responsibilities at home led to increased
baronial resistance and to the great concessions of the Magna Carta, hailed as one of the greatest
developments in human rights in history and the precursor of the United States Bill of Rights. It
was also in John's reign that the first income tax was levied in England; to try to recover his lost
lands in France, John introduced his tax of one thirteenth on income from rents and moveable
property, to be collected by the sheriffs.
To be fair to the unfortunate John, his English kingdom had been drained of its wealth for
Richard's wars in France and the Crusade as well as the exorbitant ransom. His own resources
were insufficient to overcome the problems he thus inherited. He also lacked the military
abilities of his brother. It has been said that John could win a battle in a sudden display of
energy, but then fritter away any advantage gained in a spell of indolence. It is more than one
historian who wrote of John as having the mental abilities of a great king, but the inclinations of
a petty tyrant.
John alienated his vassals in Aquitaine by divorcing his first wife, Isabella of Gloucester (who
had failed to give him a son and heir), and taking as his second wife the teenage daughter of the
Count of Angouleme, a political move that brought him no gain. The young woman was already
betrothed to Hugh de Lusignan of Poitou, and John was summoned to appear before Philip ll his
nominal overlord in France. After all his lands in France were forfeited for his refusal to appear,
John seized the initiative, marching to Poitier, and seizing young Arthur (and releasing Eleanor
of Aquitaine, held captive). He then threw everything away by releasing the most dangerous of
his prisoners, who continued the revolt against him and worse, he had Arthur of Britanny killed.
When Arthur was murdered, it was the end for John's hopes in France. The act alienated just
about everybody, and Philip now pressed home his advantage. The King of England's ineptitude
and lack of support, despite winning some victories in some provinces, eventually caused him to
flee across the Channel, never to return. It was the greatest reverse suffered by the English
Crown since the Battle of Hastings in 1066. When John reached England, the only French lands
left to him, apart from Gascony, was the Channel Islands (these nine island have remained under
the British Crown ever since and were the only part of the United Kingdom occupied by Nazi
forces in World War II).
Philip had not been the only one to be upset by John's repudiation of Isabella. The English
barons were also indignant. They had begun to lose confidence in their feudal lord. After
Richard's death, they had little faith in a victory over the King of France and became weary of
fighting John's wars, deserting him in droves. When John began to direct his attention to matters
in England, he was unable to gain their confidence. William the Lion of Scotland seized the
opportunity to reassert his country's claim to Northumberland and Cumberland, though his age
and lack of allies prevented him from achieving his aims. John's greatest problems, apart from
the mistrust of his barons, lay not with Scotland, but with the Church of Rome, now under a
strong and determined Pope, Innocent III.
Innocent, Pope from 1198 to 1216 was the first to style himself "Vicar of Christ." He proved to
be a formidable adversary to the English King. Their major dispute came over the appointment
of the new Archbishop of Canterbury at the death of Hubert Walter in 1205. John refused to
accept Stephen Langton, an Englishman active in the papal court at Rome. He was punished by
the Interdict of 1208, and for the next five years, English priests were forbidden from
administering the sacraments, even from burying the dead. Most of the bishops left the country.
York had been without an archbishop since 1207 when John's half brother Geoffrey had fled to
the continent after a quarrel over church taxes. In 1209, Innocent excommunicated John, who
was eventually forced to submit by accepting Langton as his primary Church leader. Not only
that, but he had to place England under the direct overlordship of the papacy, and it was this
humiliation that completely destroyed his political credibility. In the meantime, however, John
had successfully dealt with the problem of Ireland.
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The King had already been in Ireland, sent by his father to try to complete Henry's plans to bring
the feuding Irish chiefs and independent Norman lords to order. He had failed miserably, and the
behavior of his undisciplined troops quickly led to his ignominious withdrawal from that
troubled land. The campaign of 1210 was more successful. Many Anglo-Norman lords had
consolidated major landholdings and were in defiance of royal authority. John's efforts to bring
them to heel proved to be one of the few successes of his seventeen-year reign. He allied himself
with the Irish chiefs, and with their help was able to dispossess the powerful Walter and Hugh de
Lacy. He placed the royal Justiciar in charge of Ireland and had castles built at Carrickfergus and
Dublin to strengthen English control over the country.
It was time for the king of England to turn back to France. In 1212, John's plans to re-conquer his
former French possessions led to the revolt of his barons. His request for money and arms was
the flash point. When the northern barons refused to help, John took an army to punish the
rebels. Only Langton's intervention effected a reconciliation. The expedition to Poitou then
proceeded, but ended in total failure with the defeat by Philip at Bouvines. His continued
disregard of feudal law and customs, allied to the disgrace of the defeat in France and loss of
lands, were now seized on by the majority of English barons who presented their grievances at
Runnymede, on June 15, 1215.
The Magna Carta, the "Great Charter" was something of a compromise, a treaty of peace
between John and his rebellious barons, whose chief grievance was that of punishment without
trial. Archbishop Langton drew up the grievances into a form of statements that constitute a
complex document of 63 clauses. Though John's signature meant that baronial grievances were
to be remedied, in later years, the charter became almost a manifesto of royal powers. In fact, for
the next 450 years, even though John reluctantly signed the charter, all subsequent rulers of
England fundamentally disagreed with its principles. They preferred to see themselves as the
source of all laws and thus above the law.
For posterity, however, the two most important clauses were 39, which states that no one should
be imprisoned without trial and 40, which states that no one could buy or deny justice. Also of
particular interest is the provision that taxes henceforth could not be levied except with the
agreement of leading churchmen and barons at a meeting to which 40 days notice was to be
given. In addition, restrictions were placed on the powers of the king's local officials to prevent
them from abusing their financial, administrative and judicial powers. Weights and measures
were regulated, the safety of merchants ensured and the privileges of the citizens of London were
confirmed. The most lasting effect of the somewhat vague conditions of the Magna Carta was
the upholding of individual rights against arbitrary government.
Baronial rebellion in England was not crushed by the provisions signed at Runnymede. John
spent the rest of his reign marching back and forth trying to stamp out opposition that was led by
Prince Louis of France, son of Philip ll, but achieving little. One persistent legend is that he lost
all his baggage train, including the Crown jewels in the marshy area known as the Wash in the
county of Norfolk. The angry and frustrated king died in October 1216. His burial at Worcester,
however, showed that the centre of Plantagenet rule was now firmly established in England, and
not France (both Henry II and Richard I had been buried in Anjou).
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СРСП-10
Medieval Britain (cont'd.)
Henry III (1216-1272)
And so it was that John's young heir, Henry lll, came to the throne, to rule for 56 years, most of
which were also spent in futile battles with the leading barons of England and his failure to
recapture the lost Plantagenet lands in France. Henry also tried to take advantage of the Pope's
offer of the kingdom of Sicily by making his youngest son Edmund king of that far-off island.
To raise the funds to pay the ever increasing demands of the Bishop of Rome, Henry asked for
taxes in a repeat of his revenue-raising efforts that had failed to bring military success in France
and a crisis soon erupted. He had to agree to a meeting of "parliament" in which the opposition
was led by his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort.
Henry had already alienated his leading barons by marrying Eleanor of Provence, who brought
many of her relatives to England to create an anti-foreigner element into the realm's political
intrigues and helped solidify baronial resentment and suspicion of the incompetent, but pious
king. The Barons showed their power by drawing up the Provisions of Oxford. Henry
capitulated; he was forced to acquiesce to the setting up of a Council of Fifteen, with himself as a
"first among equals." When the king later tried to reassert his authority, the barons once again
rebelled. Under de Montfort, they captured Henry, and set up de Montfort as temporary ruler.
Henry's son Edward, showing much more resolve and military skills than his father, then raised
an army, and at the decisive battle of Evesham in 1265, defeated de Montfort to restore Henry,
who enjoyed his last few years in peace. He was especially gratified at the completion of
Westminster Abbey and the reburial of the remains of Edward the Confessor there.
During Henry III's long reign, great progress was made in the direction of the English Church,
not the least of which was the completion of the great cathedrals at Durham, Wells, Ely and
Lincoln and the erection of the magnificent edifice at Salisbury with its spire lasting for many
centuries as the tallest man-made structure in England. Most notable among many learned clerics
of the period was Robert Grosstested, Bishop of Lincoln, who become Oxford University's first
chancellor, setting that institution on the road to its eventual greatness and its enormous
influence upon the nation's future leaders.
Henry's reign also saw the movement away from the monastic ideal to that of the Church
working among the people. The Franciscans and Dominicans were particularly prominent in
charitable work in the rapidly growing towns and villages of England. In the country, an
important innovation was the introduction of windmills from Holland, which greatly aided in the
draining of marshes and the milling of grain.
Though Henry lll in many ways was a weak and vacillating king, his reign produced a great
milestone in the history of England, for the opposition of de Montfort and the Barons, though
ultimately defeated, had produced a parliament in which commoners sat for the first time, and it
was this, much more than the Magna Carta of John, that was to prove of immense significance in
the future of democracy in England, and of "government by the people and for the people."
Edward I (1272-1307)
Seen by many historians as the ideal medieval king, Edward l enjoyed warfare and statecraft
equally, and was determined to succeed in both. Henry's eldest son, he had conducted the ailing
king's affairs in England during the last years of his father's life. Known as Edward Longshanks,
he was a man whose immense strength and steely resolve had been ably shown on the crusade he
undertook to the Holy Land in 1270. The death of Henry forced his return from Sicily, though it
took him two years to return.
When he finally did arrive to claim his throne, King Edward immediately set about restoring
order in England and wiping out corruption among the barons and royal officials. His great
inquiry to recover royal rights and to re-establish law and justice became the largest official
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undertaking since the "Domesday Book" of two hundred years earlier. The proceedings took
place under the Statute of Gloucester on 1278 and the Statute of Quo Warranto of 1290. The
Statute of Mortmain of 1279 had decreed that no more land might be given into the hands to the
church without royal license. All these efforts and the great statutes of Westminster of 1275 and
1285 were so successful in reforming and codifying English law that Edward was given the title
of the "English Justinian." Of equal importance in the future development of the English
civilization was Edward's fostering of the concept of representation in a people's parliament.
Knights of the shire and burgesses of the boroughs were called to attend many of the king's
parliaments. In 1295, his gathering contained all the elements later associated with the word
"parliament," the writs issued to the sheriffs to call the knights and burgesses made it clear that
they were to act according to common counsel of their respective local communities.
Ever anxious to raise funds for his never-ending wars, the king also established a long-lasting
alliance between the Crown and the merchant classes, giving them protection in return for a
grant of export duties on wool and other agricultural products. The wily king even granted
foreign merchants freedom of trade in England in return for additional customs revenues. He
desperately needed this income to fight his Welsh and Scottish wars.
The Conquest of Wales
Visitors to the Wales of today are sometimes astonished to see the extent of Edward's castlebuilding campaign. Huge forbidding castles, such as Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech and Beaumaris
are listed as World Heritage Sites along with others such as Flint and Rhuddlan. They show the
extent to which Edward was determined to crush any Welsh aspirations of independence and to
bring the country firmly under royal control.
The stubborn Welsh were a thorn in the side of Edward whose ambition was to rule the whole of
Britain. They were a proud people, considering themselves the true Britons. Geoffrey of
Monmouth (1090-1155) had claimed that they had come to the island of Britain from Troy under
their leader Brutus. He also praised their history, written in the British tongue (Welsh). Another
Norman-Welsh author, Giraldus Cambrensis (1146-1243) had this to say about his fellow
countrymen:
The English fight for power: the Welsh for liberty; the one to procure, gain, the other to avoid
loss. The English hirelings for money; the Welsh patriots for their country.
When the English nation forged some kind of national identity under Alfred of Wessex, the
Welsh put aside their constant infighting to create something of a nation themselves under a
succession of strong leaders beginning with Rhodri Mawr (Rhodri the Great) who ruled the
greater part of Wales by the time of his death in 877. Rhodri's work of unification was then
continued by his grandson, Hywel Dda (Howell the Good 904-50), whose codification of Welsh
law has been described as among the most splendid creations of the culture of the Welsh.
Hywel was a lawgiver, not a military leader. In order to keep the peace throughout his kingdoms,
he had to accept the position of sub-regulus to Athelstan of Wessex. In 1039, however, Gruffudd
ap Llywelyn became king of Gwynedd and extended his authority throughout Wales, setting a
precedent that was to continue throughout the Norman invasion of Britain. Under Llywelyn ap
Iorwerth, Wales was forged into a single political unit. In 1204, Llywelyn married King John's
daughter Joan and was recognised by Henry III as pre-eminent in his territories. At his death,
however, in 1240, fighting between his sons Dafydd and Gruffudd just about destroyed all their
father had accomplished, and in 1254, Henry's son Edward was given control of all the Crown
lands in Wales that had been ceded at the Treaty of Woodstock in 1247.
The situation was restored by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, recognised as Prince of Wales by Henry in
1267 and ruler of a kingdom set to conduct its own affairs free from English influence. The tide
of affairs then undertook a complete reversal with the accession of Edward I to the throne of
England in 1272.
Edward's armies were defeated when they first crossed Offas's Dyke into Wales. The English
king's determination to crush his opposition, his enormous expenditure on troops and supplies
and resistance to Llywelyn from minor Welsh princes who were jealous of his rule, soon meant
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that the small Welsh forces were forced into their mountain strongholds. At the Treaty of
Aberconwy of 1287, Llywelyn was forced to concede much of his territories east of the River
Conwy. Edward then began his castle-building campaign, beginning with Flint right on the
English border and extending to Builth in mid-Wales.
Llywelyn was not yet finished. When his brother Dafydd rose in rebellion against the harsh
repression of his people's laws and customs, Llywelyn took up the cause. According to one
chronicler, the Welsh "preferred to be slain in war for their liberty than to suffer themselves to be
unrighteously trampled upon by foreigners." Sadly, however, despite initial successes, Llywelyn
was slain at Cilmeri, near Builth, when he was separated from his loyal troops, and Edward's
troubles with the Welsh were at an end. Their "impetuous rashness" was now severely punished
by the English king, intent on ridding himself of these stubborn people once and for all.
At the Statute of Rhuddlan, 1284, Wales was divided up into English counties; the English court
pattern set firmly in place, and for all intents and purposes, Wales ceased to exist as a political
unit. The situation seemed permanent when Edward followed up his castle building program by
his completion of Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech. In 1300, Edward made his son (born at
Caernarfon castle, in that mighty fortress overlooking the Menai Straits in Gwynedd) "Prince of
Wales." The powerful king could now turn his attention to those other troublemakers, the Scots.
The Scots' Road to Independence
At roughly the same time that the people of Wales were separated from the invading Saxons by
the artificial boundary of Offa's Dyke, MacAlpin had been creating a kingdom of Scotland. His
successes in part were due to the threat coming from the raids of the Vikings, many of whom
became settlers. The seizure of control over all Norway in 872 by Harald Fairhair caused many
of the previously independent Jarls to look for new lands to establish themselves. One result of
the coming of the Norsemen and Danes with their command of the sea, was that Scotland
became surrounded and isolated. The old link with Ireland was broken and the country was now
cut off from southern England and the Continent, thus the kingdom of Alba established by
MacAlpin was thrown in upon itself and united against a common foe.
In 1018, under MacAlpin's descendant Malcolm II, the Angles were finally defeated in this
northerly part of Britain and Lothian came under Scottish rule. The same year saw the death of
the British (Celtic) King of Strathclyde who left no heir; his throne going to Malcolm's grandson
Duncan. In 1034, Duncan became King of a much-expanded Scotland that included Pict-land,
Scotland, Lothian, Cumbria and Strathclyde. It excluded large tracts in the North, the Shetlands,
Orkneys and the Western Isles, held by the Scandinavians. There was still no established
boundary between Scotland and England.
It was under the rule of David l, the ninth son of Malcom III, that Norman influence began to
percolate through much of southern Scotland. David, King of Scotland, was also Prince of
Cumbria, and through marriage, Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon. Brother-in-law to the
King of England, he was raised and educated in England by Normans who "polished his manners
from the rust of Scottish barbarity." In Scotland, he distributed large estates to his AngloNorman cronies who also took over important positions in the Church. In the Scottish Lowlands
he introduced a feudal system of land ownership, founded on a new, French-speaking AngloNorman aristocracy that remained aloof from the majority of the Gaelic-speaking Celtic
population.
At David's death in 1153, the kingdom of Scotland had been extended to include the Modern
English counties of Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmoreland, territories that were in
future to be held by the kings of Scotland. Alas, the accession of Henry II to the English throne
in 1154 had changed everything.
David had been succeeded by his grandson, Malcolm IV an eleven-year old boy He was no
match for the powerful new King of England. At the Treaty of Chester, 1157 Henry's strength,
"the authority of his might," forced Malcolm to give up the northern counties solely in return for
the confirmation of his rights as Earl of Huntingdon. The Scottish border was considerably
shifted northwards. And there it remained until the rash adventures of William, Malcolms'
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brother and successor, got him captured at Alnwich, imprisoned at Falaise in Normandy, and
forced to acknowledge Henry's feudal superiority over himself and his Scottish kingdom. In
addition, to add insult to injury, the strategic castles of edinburgh, Stirling, Roxburgh, Jedburgh
and Berwick were to be held by England with English garrisons at Scottish expense.
Henry II's successor was Richard I, whose main concern was the Third Crusade. Desperately
needing money to finance his overseas adventures, Richard freed William from all "compacts"
extorted by Henry and restored the castles of Berwick and Roxburgh for a sum of 10,00 marks of
silver. Thus the humiliation of the Falaise agreement was cancelled. Richard showed little
interest in running his English kingdom, less interested in Scotland and departed for the crusade
in 1189. Once again, Scotland was a free and independent country.
A new struggle for control of Scotland had begun at the death of Alexander III in 1286, leaving
as heir his grandchild Margaret, the infant daughter of the King of Norway. English King
Edward, with his eye on the complete subjugation of his northern neighbors, suggested that
Margaret should marry his son, a desire consummated at a treaty signed and sealed at Birgham.
Under the terms, Scotland was to remain a separate and independent kingdom, though Edward
wished to keep English garrisons in a number of Scottish castles. On her way to Scotland,
somewhere in the Orkney, the young Norwegian princess died, unable to enjoy the consignment
of sweetmeats and raisins sent by the English King. The succession was now open to many
claimants, the strongest of whom were John Balliol and Robert Bruce.
John Balliol was supported by King Edward, who believed him to be the weaker and more
compliant of the two Scottish claimants. At a meeting of 104 auditors, with Edward as judge, the
decision went in favor of Balliol, who was duly declared the rightful king in November, 1292.
The English king's plans for a peaceful relationship with his northern neighbor now took a
different turn. In exchange for his support, he demanded feudal superiority over Scotland,
including homage from Balliol, judicial authority over the Scottish king in any disputes brought
against him by his own subjects and defrayment of costs for the defence of England as well as
active support in the war against France.
Even Balliol rebelled at these outrageous demands. Showing a hitherto unshown courage, in
front of the English king he declared that he was the King of Scotland and should answer only to
his own people and refused to supply military service to Edward. Overestimating his strength, he
then concluded a treaty with France prior to planning an invasion of England.
Edward was ready. He went north to receive homage from a great number of Scottish nobles as
their feudal lord, among them none other than Robert Bruce, who owned estates in England.
Balliol immediately punished this treachery by seizing Bruce's lands in Scotland and giving them
to his own brother-in-law, John Comyn. Yet within a few months, the Scottish king was to
disappear from the scene. His army was defeated by Edward at Dunbar in April 1296. Soon after
at Brechin, on 10 July, he surrendered his Scottish throne to the English king, who took into his
possession the stone of Scone, "the coronation stone" of the Scottish kings. At a parliament
which he summoned at Berwick, the English king received homage and the oath of fealty from
over two thousand Scots. He seemed secure in Scotland.
Flushed with this success, Edward had gone too far. The rising tide of nationalist fervor in the
face of the arrival of the English armies north of the border created the need for new Scottish
leaders. With the killing of an English sheriff following a brawl with English soldiers in the
marketplace at Lanark, a young Scottish knight, William Wallace found himself at the head of a
fast-spreading movement of national resistance. At Stirling Bridge, a Scottish force led by
Wallace, won an astonishing victory when it completely annihilated a large, lavishly-equipped
English army under the command of Surrey, Edward l viceroy.
We can imagine the shock to the over-confident Edward and the extent to which he sought his
revenge. At Falkirk, his re-organized army crushed the over-confident Scottish followers of
Wallace, who was now finished as an effective leader and forced into hiding. Following the
battle, a campaign began to ruthlessly suppress all attempts at reasserting Scottish independence.
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It was time for Robert Bruce to free himself from his fealty to Edward and lead the fight for
Scotland.
At a meeting between the two surviving claimants for the Scottish throne in Greyfriar's Kirk at
Dumfries, Robert Bruce murdered John Comyn, thus earning the enmity of the many powerful
supporters of the Comyn family, but also excommunication from the Church. His answer was to
strike out boldly, raising the Royal Standard at Scone and, on March 27, 1306, declaring himself
King of Scots. Edward's reply was predictable; he sent a large army north, defeated Bruce at the
battle of Methven, executed many of his supporters and forced the Scottish king to become a
hunted outlaw.
The indefatigable Scottish leader bided his time. After a year of demoralization and widespread
English terror let loose in Scotland, during which two of his brothers were killed, Bruce came
out of hiding. Aided mightily by his Chief Lieutenant, Sir James Douglas, "the Black Douglas,"
he won his first victory on Palm Sunday, 1307. From all over Scotland, the clans answered the
call and Bruce's forces gathered in strength to fight the English invaders, winning many
encounters against cavalry with his spearmen.
The aging Edward, the so-called "hammer of the Scots," marched north at the head of a large
army to punish the Scots' impudence; but the now weak and sick king was ineffectual as a
military leader. He could only wish that after his death his bones would be carried at the head of
his army until Scotland had been crushed. It was left to his son Edward to try to carry out his
father's dying wish. He was no man for the task.
Edward ll was crowned King of England in 1307. Faced by too many problems at home and
completely lacking the ruthfulness and resourcefulness of his father, the young king had no wish
to get embroiled in the affairs of Scotland. Bruce was left alone to consolidate his gains and to
punish those who opposed him. In 1311 he drove out the English garrisons in all their Scottish
strongholds except Stirling and invaded northern England. King Edward finally, begrudgingly,
bestirred himself from his dalliances at Court to respond and took a large army north.
On Mid-Summer's Day, the 24th of June, 1314 occurred one of the most momentous battles in
British history. The armies of Robert Bruce, heavily outnumbered by their English rivals, but
employing tactics that prevented the English army from effectively employing its strength, won a
decisive victory at Bannockburn. Scotland was wrenched from English control, its armies free to
invade and harass northern England. Such was Bruce's military successes that he was able to
invade Ireland, where his brother Edward had been crowned King by the exuberant Irish. A
second expedition carried out by Edward II north of the border was driven back and the English
king was forced to seek for peace.
The Declaration of Arboath of 1320 stated that since ancient times the Scots had been free to
choose their own kings, a freedom that was a gift from God. If Robert Bruce were to prove weak
enough to acknowledge Edward as overlord, then he would be dismissed in favor of someone
else. Though English kings still continued to call themselves rulers of Scotland, just as they
called themselves rulers of France for centuries after being booted out of the continent, Scotland
remained fully independent until 1603 (when James Stuart succeeded Elizabeth I).
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СРСП-11
: Medieval Britain (cont'd.)
Misrule in England under Edward II (1307-27)
Edward II's miserable failure in Scotland was matched by equal ignominy at home. Quite simply,
as one chronicler put it: "He did not realize his father's ambition." One problem was the
resurgence of baronial opposition. It didn't help much that the king was overly fond of his male
companions, especially enjoying a passionate relationship with the French Piers Gaveston, whom
he made Earl of Cornwall. The disaster at Bannockburn added to the king's ever-plummeting
reputation for incompetence and opposition gathered under the Earl of Lancaster.
Meanwhile, Edward's wife Isabella and their young son had gone to the French court to start
their own revolt against the profligate, homosexual king. She took as her lover the powerful
Mortimer, and in 1326 their combined forces landed in England to begin active resistance to
Edward. The unfortunate king, without any support, was forced to surrender his crown in favor
of his young son. His gruesome death in prison need not be recounted here, but it received
dramatic attention at the hands of the gifted Marlowe (1564-1593).
England Revives Under Edward III (1327-77)
The murdered king's successor, Edward III began his reign at the age of fourteen. He ruled for
fifty years, years marked by the king's restoration of royal prestige, the beginnings of what is
known as "The Hundred Years War" with France, the growth of parliamentary privilege in
England and the devastating results of the plague known as the Black Death.
The Hundred Years War began when Edward took up arms against his overlord, Philip IV. It
began over the duchy of Gascony, the only fragment left to the Angevin kings of England (apart
from the Channel Islands) of their French possessions. Gascony was held by the king, however,
as a vassal of his powerful overlord, the King of France. It was an extremely valuable asset, for
its chief port Bordeaux shipped huge quantities of wine that provided a much needed source of
income for the English Crown in customs revenues. It was to avoid confiscation of the duchy by
the French king that Edward decided to invade. Edward also re-enforced his claim to the French
crown by assuming the title of King of France, a move that would also help to provide sanction
for his French supporters (the title was only given up by the British monarchy in 1802).
Briefly, Edward's policy of launching lightning raids deep into France was initially successful,
and his tactic of using men-at-arms and longbowmen produced the outstanding victories at Crecy
in 1346 and at Poitiers in 1356. At Crecy, Edward's son, the Prince of Wales, known as The
Black Prince," for the color of his armor, gained his motto "Ich Dien" (I serve), used as part of
the insignia of the present Prince of Wales.
Edward was also successful in capturing Calais in 1347 which was to remain in English hands
for over two hundred years. In 1360, the English king made a peace settlement by which he
received southwest France in full sovereignty. Charles V of France had other ideas, however, and
brought his full military might to repudiate the settlement. By 1375, following a costly war of
attrition, Edward had lost most of his gains.
Edward had no control over the outbreak of the Black Death that devastated most of Europe by
bringing bubonic plague, carried by the black rat and transmitted to humans by fleas and the
pneumonia that inevitably followed. It arrived in England in 1348, quickly spreading inland from
its port of entry and within one year had affected all of Britain. Perhaps as many as one half of
the country's population died before the scourge suddenly came to an end in 1350. It left behind
a greatly depleted population, made laborers scarce and thus drove up wages, creating a situation
in which many workers could offer their services to the highest bidder. A floating population of
traveling workers came into being.
The third major phenomenon, the growth of Parliament, came about as a result of Edward's
constant need for finances to support his continental adventures. The assembly of nobles and
administrators who offered advice to the king had begun to insist that they had a right to be
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summoned. A crisis occurred in 1341-43 over Edward's finances. Parliament took action to
curtail many royal perquisites; many statutes were passed to increase the powers of the nobles,
but the Commons, also depended upon for revenue, also increased its influence at the expense of
the king. The earlier conflict of 1321 between Edward II and his barons had led to the Statute of
York one year later that clearly limited the king's powers. It had been the combined assembly of
prelates, knights and burgesses, in fact, that had shown their own increasing power by
demanding the abdication of Edward in 1326.
The Magna Carta had been primarily a concern of the barons to protect their interests against the
king. Since then, however, the so-called gentry, the middle class landholders in the various
counties were also taking part in the political debate. From 1299 on, they had been summoned by
the king and parliament to authorize taxes to pay for the military. When Edward I also imposed
heavy taxes on the clergy and offered special favors to the merchants, both these classes then
expected some recognition in return. It was apparent that a new political society had been
brewing ever so gradually but ever so strongly in England; its kings had to come to terms with it,
as Edward II learned of his peril and ultimate death. The beginning of rule by consensus was
firmly established by the time of Edward III's death.
Another important phenomenon taking place in England in the 14th century must not be
overlooked. In 1362, Parliament passed an act to make English the official language of pleadings
in the law courts, rather than French. Resistance from the lawyers prevented its full
implementation, but the English language continued to be used in parliamentary rolls and
statutes and ultimately replaced French to become the official language of the country. Because
Latin was a spoken language among clerics and men of learning, an enormous number of
borrowings came into English at this time from Latin. This, too, was the age of Geoffrey
Chaucer, John Gower, John Barbour, Sir John Mandevill, and John Wycliffe, all of whom wrote
in the English language. By the end of the 14th century, the vast variety of Middle English
dialects notwithstanding, a standard form of written English had come into being.
The last ten years of the glorious reign of Edward lll, highly praised by his contemporaries as a
period without parallel in the history of England for its "beneficent, merciful and august rule,"
was marred by constitutional crises. That the king himself was in his dotage hardly helped
matters. Edward the heir to the throne was painfully ill and dying. The gradual disintegration of
royal authority brought about by diplomatic and military failures produced the serious
confrontation of the so-called Good Parliament of 1376.
There were many grievances to be dealt with by the Good Parliament and a committee was set
up of leading prelates and nobles to deal with them. A speaker was appointed to act as the
Commons' chairman and representative, and the first use of the judicial procedure known as
impeachment took place. The principal grievance was that Edward's councillors and servants
"were not loyal or profitable to him or the kingdom." The resulting dismissal of some of the
king's advisors and financiers meant that it was the commons, not the barons, who had now taken
the initiative in ousting royal favorites.
The Good Parliament had also seen one of the most serious attacks on the Crown during the
whole later Middle Ages. Though King Edward, through his powerful Councillor John of Gaunt,
sought some measure of revenge by nullifying almost everything the parliament had sought to
put in place, in summing up his long reign, we can praise his remarkable ability to accommodate
the interests of so many of his subjects. No wonder a cult of Edward lll as a wise and benevolent
king quickly grew in England. It was a cult that made it very difficult for his successors.
A King is Deposed: Richard II (1377-99)
One sorrowful day in August, 1399, King Richard stood on the ramparts of Flint Castle, in its
lonely position on the Dee estuary in Northeast Wales, watching the soldiers of Henry, Duke of
Lancaster, advance from the direction of Chester. Flint townspeople still relate that the king's
ever-present companion, his greyhound Math, betrayed his master that day by running to greet
the triumphant Henry. Richard had already been betrayed by the Earls of Northumberland and
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Arundel who had persuaded him to leave the safety of Conwy Castle to journey to Flint. Math's
ghost is now said to howl nightly in the ruins of the ancient castle.
Poor Richard! He certainly had delusions of grandeur, but many of his attempts to establish a
realm of royal absolutism were to come to fruition only in the reign of his successor. His own
reign saw the unleashing of forces completely beyond his control. Great economic and political
developments were changing the face of Europe forever. The king's own lack of judgement only
precipitated his eventual abdication, enforced after a rule of 22 years of great social unrest and
baronial discontent. His reign also coincided with the period of the French Wars, that ate away at
his treasury and caused constitutional crises at home.
Richard had become king at the age of ten. England, still held shackled by great war debts, was
governed by a powerful council of nobles, supervised by the Richard's uncle, John of Gaunt
Duke of Lancaster by virtue of his first marriage, to Blanche of Lancaster. The Duke's second
marriage was to Constanza of Castile, a union that forced a great deal of his attention to
acquiring the throne of that Spanish kingdom.
Four years after Richard acceded to the throne, he was faced with the mass popular uprising
known as the Peasants' Revolt. To raise funds for the French war, a poll tax was adopted by the
government the unfair distribution of which caused massive resistance (much like the one
initiated by the government of Margaret Thatcher many hundreds of years later). An outbreak of
rioting followed attempts to collect the tax from the poorer classes.
The rebels marched on and occupied London. Richard and his advisors hastily promised charters
of emancipation and redress of grievances to the rebel leaders, promises, it turned out, that they
had no intention of keeping. The young king pacified the angry mob when their leader Wat Tylor
was killed; he then showed he meant business by having their leaders executed. Perhaps scared
for the safety of his Crown, he then squandered the support of his lords in Parliament by going
too far. His despotic measures, in an attempt to reassert royal prerogative, alienated the barons,
who sided with Duke Henry of Lancaster.
Richard's major problem was that he had high ideas of his own dignity and of the power of the
divine right of kings. This not only brought him into conflict with his barons, leading to his
ultimate deposition, but also with the powerful English Church, whose leaders could always
appeal to Rome against any royal encroachment on their privileges. Richard devoted all his
energies to the establishing of a despotism that was out of place in the England of his time.
Neither the time nor the place was right for the establishment of an absolute monarchy.
The nobles had grown too powerful and Richard's insistence that he was the sole source of
English law, not bound by custom, did not sit too highly with those who thought otherwise. The
kings' tampering with the will of Parliament, nullifying measures passed by both Lords and
Commons, coupled with his attempts to create a written constitution that would serve the rights
of the crown for ever, and his assertion that it was high treason to try to repeal his statutes, his
appeals to the Pope to obtain confirmation of his measures all combined to force the barons to
acquiesce in his deposition. The last straw was Richard's attempt to make Parliament the
instrument of destruction of its own liberties (a political move carried out with much greater
success by Henry VIII many generations later).
It did not help Richard, who introduced the handkerchief to England, that his nobles had
regarded with loathing his patronage of the arts, his extravagant tastes, his choice of favorites
and his effeminate ways. In 1386, the king had given the title of Marquis of Dublin to Robert de
Vere, a greedy, arrogant man. A group of nobles known as the Lords Appellant, including the
Dukes of Lancaster and Norfolk demanded trial for Richard's friends, including de Vere. When
de Vere raised an army, he was defeated, and the "Merciless Parliament of 1388 tried an
executed many of Richard's followers. Richard was outraged, but in 1389, coming of age, began
his majority by dispensing with a council altogether.
Richard regarded his coronation as giving him the right to keep royalty from being dishonored
by any concessions to anyone, from the Pope himself, through the leading barons, down to the
poorest of is subjects. His will directed that he be given a royal funeral. It seems that his ideas,
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originally formed into a system of defence against the papacy (growing increasingly powerful in
the affairs of Europe) were formulated into a doctrine of absolute monarchy. He was repudiated
by his nation.
When he found a pretence to banish both Bolingbroke and Mowbray (Dukes of Lancaster and
Norfolk), Richard believed he had a free hand to begin his aim of ruling by absolute fiat. He
raised a private army, imposed additional taxes, lavished gifts upon his favorites and spent huge
sums of money on extravagant court feasts. He also incurred the enmity of the citizens of
London, without whose support no king of England could now successfully govern.
The great revolution of 1399 was an assertion of the rights of Englishmen to constitutional
government, thus it bears an uncanny resemblance to the great revolt of the American Colonies
some centuries later. The principal grievances were the same. The articles of deposition setting
forth the charges against the king were just as uncompromising as his own absolute doctrine.
Richard had greatly overreached his powers by appropriating the lands of the Duchy of
Lancaster after the death of John of Gaunt in 1399. This was the ultimate blunder that led
directly to its downfall. If the great house of Lancaster could lose its property to the king, then no
man's land was safe in England. The future Henry IV was thus acting as the champion of
property rights when he met Richard at Flint Castle.
By elevating Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt and grandson of Edward lll
to the throne, the nobles passed over Richard's nearest heir. They thus asserted the right of
Parliament to elect the fittest person from within the royal family. For a short time at least,
constitutionalism triumphed in England. Unfortunately for the future of the kingdom, the passing
over of the elder branch of the royal house in favor of the House of Lancaster meant the eventual
reasserting of the claims of the House of York and the consequent Wars of the Roses with their
attendant anarchy.
England Triumphant: Henry IV (1399-1413)
Henry of Bolingbroke was renowned as a fighting man. He had travelled extensively in Europe
and the Mediterranean before overthrowing the unpopular Richard (who died a mysterious death,
probably due to starvation while in prison). One problem with Henry's usurpation of the throne
was the setting of a dangerous precedent: a rightful king, properly anointed and recognized by
the Church, had been deposed (a theme that provided Shakespeare with so much material in his
"Richard II"). It was thus up to Henry to consolidate the powers of the monarchy, and it was to
his advantage to utilize Parliament to bolster his position and counter the ever-present threats to
his throne and challenges to his position as chief lawgiver. Through this alliance, as troubled as it
was by constant wrangling over the king's expenses, he was able to overcome most of the
troubles that were a legacy from Richard.
Of the serious threats he had to deal with, Henry was most troubled by the revolt of the Welsh
under Owain Glyndwr. Social unrest and racial tension underlay much of the resentment of the
Welsh people, ever mindful that they were the true Britons, descendants of Brutus and rightful
heirs to the kingdom. Uncertainty as to the future of Wales and the repressive measures of
successive English kings following Edward IÍs conquest of their nation found expression in the
general uprising under Owain, at first successful in reclaiming much Welsh territory and
capturing English strongholds on and within the borders.
A tripartite alliance among Owain, the Earl of Northumberland and Henry Mortimer looked as if
it would succeed in dismembering England, ridding its people of its usurper monarch. Military
aid was promised from the king of France. Glyndwr (Owen Glendower) had himself crowned
Prince of Wales and called a parliament at Machynlleth. Then it all unraveled for the
conspirators. Henry Percy of Northumberland (Hotspur) was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury,
Louis of Orleans was assassinated and the promise of French aid was not fulfilled. Owain's other
ally, the King of Scotland was taken prisoner by the armies of England, commanded by the ever
resourceful, ever able military strength of young Prince Henry, later Henry V.
Owain's fight for Welsh independence was betrayed by fellow Welshman David Gam, fighting
for the English, and his cause was lost. Wales had to wait almost 600 years for its next people's
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assembly. King Henry then quickly dealt with other rebellions, including one led by Archbishop
of York, Richard Scrope, who was executed for his audacity. Thus Henry succeeded in keeping
his shaky throne intact. He died after a long illness in 1413, leaving the throne to the charismatic
warrior, King Henry V.
СРСП-12
Medieval Britain (cont'd.)
Henry V (1413-22)
The reign of Lancastrian hero Henry V was not a long one. It could have been a glorious one,
certainly if we think of him solely as a warrior-king, fearless in leading his troops into battle and
winning his military victories against seemingly-impossible odds. His conquest of Normandy
and his acquisition of the throne of France made him a legend in his own time. Who can find
fault with his dream of ultimately uniting all of Christian Europe against the infidel?
Henry's brief reign, however, did not get off to a good start at home. Two rebellions had to be
dealt with: one led by Sir John Oldcastle, of a prominent Welsh border family, who was
disgruntled by his excommunication and imprisonment for heresy; the other led by Richard, Earl
of Cambridge, husband of Anne Mortimer, sister of Edmund Mortimer the nearest legitimate
claimant to the throne by descent from Edward lll, and younger brother of the Duke of York. The
first one owed a great deal to the earlier attempts of English monarchs to make their country
more independent of Rome; the second to the continuing claims of the heirs of Richard ll to the
Crown of England.
The Catholic Church had been steadily increasing its demands upon the English treasury, but it
had been meeting with increasing resistance. During the reign of Edward lll, reformer John
Wycliffe, had declared that the Bible, and not the Church, was the true guide to faith. The
English king could welcome this novel idea as long as it didn't lead to attacks on his own
prerogative. After all, it needed a representative of Rome at Canterbury to sanction the accession
to power of the English monarch.
There was also the matter of the Papal Schism, with rival popes in Rome and Avignon. This was
hardly a situation that created confidence in the Holy Catholic Church. Wycliffe went so far as
having the Bible translated into English, making it accessible to all who could read, and not just
the classically educated clergy. His ideas were then preached with great zeal by the Lollards, all
of who condemned many practices of the established Church. Their demands were premature,
for religious dissent also constituted a grave threat to the stability of the realm, and King Henry
IV, with the able assistance of ultra-conservative Archbishop Arundel had undertaken stern
measures to combat their ideas, including burning Lollards at the stake.
Oldcastle, a boyhood friend of Henry V, after escaping from the Tower of London, was accused
of organizing a Lollard rebellion. After years in hiding, he was eventually betrayed, captured and
executed and his followers dispersed. The rebellion of Richard, Earl of Cambridge, against the
Royal House of Lancaster, also suffered the same fate. Both plots were foiled by the decisive
action of the king's supporters and Henry, supported by an effective, disciplined royal council,
was thus free to embark on his French adventures.
Contemporary events in France greatly favored the implementation of Henry's claims in that
country, especially the incompetence of Charles V's son and heir Charles VI, who also suffered
from bouts of insanity. Bitter rivalries tore asunder the French Court, one headed by the king's
younger brother, Louis of Orleans and the other by the king's uncle, Philip of Burgundy. The
latter had designs on complete control of the government of France, a cause aided by the
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assassination of Orleans in 1407. The resulting outbreak of civil war paralyzed France for a
generation. In the meantime, the King of England took immediate advantage and took his army
across the Channel.
Forgetting anything or everything they had learned at Crecy in the previous century, the French
army attacked the motley crew that made up the English forces at Agincourt using the same
tactics that failed them in the earlier slaughter. The result was an even bigger disaster for the
over-confident French with appalling losses among their heavily armed, mounted knights
completely unable to maneuver in the marshy lands and cut down by the skill of Henry's
mercenary archers, many recruited in Wales.
Following Agincourt, the way was open for Henry to take possession of Normandy. The
Dauphin fled Paris, leaving Queen Isabella (during one of her husband fits of insanity) to come
to term with the victorious English king. The powerful Duke of Burgundy, whose support had
been crucial for Henry, was fatally stabbed by a former supporter of the murdered Orleans while
arranging the negotiations, but the English king had no serious rivals in France to thwart his
ambition.
By the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, it was declared that on the death of Charles VI his throne
should be given to "his only true son," Henry V of England, now married to the Princess
Catherine. We can only surmise what the political future of both France and England might have
been had Henry not died during one of his French campaigns in 1422, leaving the Duke of
Gloucester as regent in England and the Duke of Bedford as regent in France. The heir to the
English throne was less than one year old. Queen Catherine, remaining in England, took as her
next husband Owen Tudor of Wales, with consequences we shall deal with later.
Henry VI (1422-71)
In a reign lasting almost fifty years, Henry VI lost two kingdoms, his only son and on many
occasions, his reason. Perhaps we can blame bad luck for the king's misfortunes, certainly his
bad judgement, but Henry was never a ruler in his own person. He had come to the throne as an
infant, the country being governed by a regency dominated first by his uncles of the House of
Lancaster and later by the Beauforts. In addition to being dominated by the Duke of Suffolk, he
was also controlled by his wife Margaret of Anjou. During bouts of mental illness, England was
ruled by Richard, Duke of York as protector. In marked contrast to the good order of his father,
the complete fiasco of the reign of Henry Vl ultimately led to that sad period in English history
known as "The Wars of the Roses."
In France, despite a few desultory successes after the death of Henry V, things went from bad to
worse for the English occupiers. Under the inspired leadership of a peasant girl from Domremy,
known as Joan of Arc, French resistance was revitalized, Orleans relieved and the Dauphin
crowned at Reims as Charles VII. Joan was eventually captured by the ever-treacherous
Burgundians and sentenced to death for heresy by a Church court, becoming a national martyr
after she had nobly perished in the bonfire at Rouen in 1431.
The fires that burned Joan also ignited the latent forces of French nationalism. After 1435 and
the death of the Duke of Bedford, the English armies found themselves virtually leaderless in the
face of increasing French strength. During the long years of attrition that followed, they were
gradually forced to give up all they had gained under Henry V except the single port of Calais.
Agincourt might as well not have happened.
In England, at the same time, despite the avowed saintliness of the king, the monarchy was
rapidly losing its prestige. Though he was interested in education, and both Eton College and
Kings College, Cambridge were founded during his reign, Henry's employment of ambitious,
self-serving courtiers and advisors only hastened the onset of civil war. In particular, the constant
feuds of the kings' relatives, descended from Edward lll, created a situation bordering on
anarchy. Richard of York, heir to the son of Richard II, the boy whose rights had been passed
over by parliament in 1399, led the anti-Lancastrian party. The Wars of the Roses began in 1453,
when the birth of a son to King Henry precluded the possibility of a peaceful succession.
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Richard of York, whose family had adopted its emblem a white rose as a Yorkist badge, raised
the standard of revolt to begin the thirty-year period of civil war that wracked the whole nation.
Never really involving more than armed clashes between small bands of noblemen with their
private retainers, the bloody conflict nevertheless managed to exterminate most of the English
aristocracy as its fortunes swung back and forth between the two sides.
King Henry and Margaret had adopted the red rose as the symbol of the House of Lancaster.
They managed to force Richard of York into exile, but when Henry was later captured at the
Battle of Northampton, Richard returned to claim the throne for himself. A compromise was then
effected that would allow him to reign after Henry's death, but York was killed at Wakefield
when Margaret led an army against him in 1460. His son Edward was then supported in his
claims by the formidable Earl of Warwick (Warwick the kingmaker). Henry had been recaptured
by his "manly queen, used to rule..." but he was driven into exile one year later when Warwick
had the Yorkist prince crowned as Edward lV.
There were now two kings ruling England, and thus a battle was necessary to try to settle the
matter. It duly took place in 1461 at Towton, the bloodiest engagement of the whole war and a
disaster for the House of Lancaster. Henry and Margaret had to flee to Scotland. When his wife
left to drum up support in France, Henry stayed behind as fugitive, only to be imprisoned once
more. Warwick then switched his allegiance to Margaret and their joint invasion forced King
Edward to flee to the Continent. They released the poor, bewildered Henry from the Tower of
London to be recognized as king again.
No wonder Henry had fits of insanity. His joy at being restored to the throne was short-lived, for
Edward was not finished. He returned to England in 1471, with aid from Charles the Bold of
Burgundy and at Barnet in 1471, he defeated and killed Warwick. At the battle of Tewkesbury,
he then defeated Queen Margaret and killed her husband's son Edward. Henry found himself
back in prison at the Tower where he was executed. Later chroniclers praised his good qualities
and Henry VII even sought his canonization, but the former Henry had completely failed as a
ruler. His reign had not only seen civil war, but also had to deal with the serious revolt of the
middle classes led by Jack Cade, seeking to redress government abuses and the lack of input into
the arbitrary decisions of the king and council. Though the rebellion failed, it showed only too
clearly that arbitrary decisions by those in power could be strongly protested by those without.
Edward lV (1461-83)
Edward began his reign in 1461 and ruled for eight years before Henry's brief return. His reign is
marked by two distinct periods, the first in which he was chiefly engaged in suppressing the
opposition to his throne, and the second in which he enjoyed a period of relative peace and
security. Both periods were marked also by his extreme licentiousness; it is said that his sexual
excesses were the cause of his death (it may have been typhoid), but he was praised highly for
his military skills and his charming personality. When Edward married Elizabeth Woodville, a
commoner of great beauty, but regarded as an unfit bride for a king, even Warwick turned
against him. We can understand Warwick's switch to Margaret and to Edward's young brother,
the Duke of Clarence, when we learn that he had hoped the king would marry one of his own
daughters.
Clarence continued his activities against his brother during the second phase of Edward's reign;
his involvement in a plot to depose the king got him banished to the Tower where he
mysteriously died (drowned in his bath). Edward had meanwhile set up a council with extensive
judicial and military powers to deal with Wales and to govern the Marches. His brother, the
Duke of Gloucester headed a council in the north. He levied few subsidies, invested his own
considerable fortune in improving trade; freed himself from involvement in France by accepting
a pension from the French King; and all in all, remained a popular monarch. He left two sons,
Edward and Richard, in the protection of Richard of Gloucester, with the results that have
forever blackened their guardian's name in English history.
Richard III (1483-85)
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Richard of Gloucester had grown rich and powerful during the reign of his brother Edward IV,
who had rewarded his loyalty with many northern estates bordering the city of York. Edward had
allowed Richard to govern that part of the country, where he was known as "Lord of the North."
The new king was a minor and England was divided over whether Richard should govern as
Protector or merely as chief member of a Council. There were also fears that he may use his
influence to avenge the death of his brother Clarence at the hands of the Queen's supporters. And
Richard was supported by the powerful Duke of Buckingham, who had married into the
Woodville family against his will.
Richard's competence and military ability was a threat to the throne and the legitimate heir
Edward V. After a series of skirmishes with the forces of the widowed queen, anxious to restore
her influence in the north, Richard had the young prince of Wales placed in the Tower. He was
never seen again though his uncle kept up the pretence that Edward would be safely guarded
until his upcoming coronation. The queen herself took sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, but
Richard had her brother and father killed.
Edward's coronation was set for June, 1483. Richard planned his coup. First he divided the ruling
Council, convincing his own followers of the need to have Lord Hastings executed for treason.
(It had been Hastings who had informed him of the late King's death and the ambitions of the
Queen's party). He then had his other young nephew Richard join Edward in the Tower. One day
after that set for Edward's coronation, Richard was able to pressure the assembled Lords and
Commons in Parliament to petition him to assume the kingship. After his immediate acceptance,
he then rode to Westminster and was duly crowned as Richard III. His rivals had been defeated
and the prospects for a long, stable reign looked promising. Then it all unraveled for the
treacherous King.
It is one thing to kill a rival in battle but it is another matter to have your brother's children put to
death. By being suspected of this evil deed, Richard condemned himself. Though the new king
busied himself granting amnesty and largesse to all and sundry, he could never cleanse himself
of the suspicion surrounding the murder of the young princes. He had his own son Edward
invested as Prince of Wales, and thus heir to his throne, but revulsion soon set in to destroy what,
for all intents and purposes, could have been a well-managed, competent royal administration.
It didn't help Richard much that even before he took the throne he had denounced the Queen
"and her blood adherents," impugned the legitimacy of his own brother and his young nephews
and stigmatized Henry Tudor's royal blood as bastard. The rebellion against him started with the
defection of the Duke of Buckingham whose open support of the Lancastrian claimant overseas,
Henry Tudor, transformed a situation which had previously favored Richard.
The king was defeated and killed at Bosworth Field in 1485, a battle that was as momentous for
the future of England as had been Hastings in 1066. The battle ended the Wars of the Roses, and
for all intents and purposes, the victory of Henry Tudor and his accession to the throne
conveniently marks the end of the medieval and the beginning of England's modern period.
СРСП-13
From Reformation to Restoration
Henry VII (1485-1509)
The victor at Bosworth Field was Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. Though his claim to the
throne was tenuous and few in England could even hope that stability had at last come to that
troubled land, he was to begin a dynasty that lasted 118 years. At the beginning of Henry VII's
reign the Wars of the Roses were still pitting the Houses of York and Lancaster against each
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other for the throne. By the end of t Elizabeth IÍs reign, the last of the Tudors, the kingdom of
Britain had become a great sea-power, enjoyed an unparalleled growth in literature and drama,
experienced vast economic and social change and suffered (and more or less settled) the
tumultuous problems of the great European Reformation. Little England had become
unrecognizable in its unswerving path toward world domination in so many different areas.
Henry had a lot to think about when he defeated Richard. His victory was due as much to the
king's allies deserting him on the field of battle as much as it was to Henry's own determination
and courage, and in the face of his weak claim to be the legitimate ruler, a desperate gamble.
After all, on his mother's side, he was descended from the offspring of John of Gaunt and his
mistress, specifically barred from the succession. His grandfather, Welshman Owen Tudor, had
been a household clerk of Catherine of Valois, whom he married after the death of her husband
Henry V. Their son Edmund was granted the title of Earl of Richmond, and Henry himself,
brought up in France, had the good sense to marry Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward
lV, thus bringing together the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster.
It was not easy going for the new king. He effectively dealt with the early Yorkist threat to the
throne when he defeated a conglomeration of rebels under Lambert Simnel, pushed forward to
claim the throne as the supposed Earl of Warwick, nephew of Edward lV and Richard III.
Henry's victory at Stoke, in 1487 marked the last battle of the Wars of the Roses. Then he dealt
with Perkin Warbeck, who posed as the younger of the princes who had been murdered in the
Tower. Along with the support of the King of Scotland, James VI, Warbeck foolishly led an
army composed mostly of Cornishmen against Henry but was defeated and beheaded. The
problem of Wales was more easily settled.
Henry had landed in West Wales to begin his march that culminated at Bosworth, in the English
Midlands. The people of Wales showed little interest one way or the other, after all, the problem
of the succession was an English one, but when Henry assumed the throne, it was generally felt
in the principality that a Welsh ruler had now come to the land. Much of Wales, especially the
gentry, now rejoiced in Henry's victory. They identified with the new ruler, a quarter Welsh (a
quarter French and half English), who seemed proud of his Welsh lineage and showed that he
recognized it. Consequently, Wales and the Marches were quite content to be ruled by the King's
Council. It certainly helped that Henry named his son and heir Arthur, a name of great historical
significance to the people of Wales, ever conscious of their long history as true Britons and heirs
of the illustrious King Arthur.
The king could now concentrate on his governmental reforms, cementing in place not only the
combined power of monarch and Parliament, centred in Westminster, but also reinvigorating the
administration of law on both the national and local level. At Westminster, he revived the Court
of the Star Chamber to deal with problems that mostly involved the nobility, and he
reinvigorated the system of Justices of the Peace to keep tight control of the towns and parishes
and ensure respect for the Crown. Henry also took control of the government's finances; his use
of statutes to raise money raised some hackles, but he always had the excuse of needing extra
cash to fight the French (who, in any case, paid him handsomely to stay away).
Henry secured his position as king by firm and effective government, soundly supported by
adequate finances and backed by a strong legal system. The country was at peace and able to
enjoy a great increase in trade with the Continent. John Cabot's voyages put the English flag on
the shores of North America, the great mariner-explorer was supported by the king's grants of
money and ships. Henry was also interested in books and learning. It was Henry who introduced
the Yeomen of the Guard, the colorful "beefeaters" still to be seen at the Tower. His prudence,
caution and wisdom were praised by historian Polydor Vergil as best suited to his age; they were
qualities highly sought in a king.
All seemed well, but it was not. The premature death of Prince Arthur, who had married
Catherine of Aragon when both were in their teens, had unforeseen consequences. The marriage
may not have been consummated, but the subsequent remarriage of the Spanish Princess to
Arthur's younger brother (who later became Henry VIII) created a major problem with the
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Catholic Church, which was having problems of its own trying to remain independent from the
growing power of European monarchies. In one way, the repercussions of Arthur's premature
death can be said to have led to the later success of the Reformation in England. It also meant the
eventual unification of the Scottish and English Crowns, for Henry's daughter Margaret married
King James IV of Scotland. But all this was later.
СРСП-14
: From Reformation to Restoration (cont'd.)
Henry VIII (1509-1547)
After the reign of the avaricious, duplicitous Henry Tudor, it was a welcome relief when he was
succeeded by the amiable, athletic Henry VIII. He was a man who loved music, the military arts,
and was interested in building England's navy. Considered by his contemporaries as a true
renaissance prince, Henry proved just as ruthless as his father, a man who brooked no
opposition, real or imagined. Right away he began his policy of "dynastic extermination,"
showing his bent by getting rid of the Duke of Buckingham, the Countess of Salisbury (sister to
the Earl of Warwick) and in 1546, the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the grandson of
Buckingham.
In understanding the spate of executions and the ridding of even those with the slightest of
claims to the throne, we have to remember the infertility of the Tudors, a curse that was to haunt
them. All male children born to Catherine and Henry had died. Henry had no heir of his own
other than Princess Mary; it was unthinkable at the time that a woman should rule England. As
Henry had married his brother's widow, the solution seemed simple enough: he would have to
get his marriage annulled and marry the young, attractive, willing and it was to be hoped, fertile
Anne Boleyn. But the king had not reckoned on the obstinacy of Charles V, the most powerful
monarch in Europe, the nephew of Catherine and, more importantly, the virtual keeper of the
Pope. Henry was just as obstinate, and those who failed to support his efforts to have the
marriage annulled were quickly to feel his wrath.
Cardinal Pole, son of the Countess of Salisbury led the opposition to the king; thus his family
was chosen for elimination. Pole had earlier gone to Paris in 1529 to seek a favorable opinion of
Henry's claims in the matter of the divorce. He later sided with Charles V against the king,
becoming elected cardinal for his spirited attack on the English monarch. He then appeared as a
legate at the Council of Trent and played no significant part in English affairs until the accession
of Mary. In the meanwhile, the son of an Ipswich butcher began his rapid rise to some of the
highest offices in the land.
Thomas Wolsey joined the king's council in 1509, the first year of Henry's long reign. As the
king enjoyed other pursuits, he left much of the administration in Wolsey's able hands,
appointing him Lord Chancellor in 1515. The ambitious Wolsey then acquired other offices in
rapid succession, including those of Archbishop of York, Cardinal and Papal Legate, in the
words of a Venetian ambassador, "ruling the kingdom." It was in Henry's own interest to give
free reign to his chief minister, but only so far.
Wolsey, like so many others in the kingdom, was completely undone by his failure to get Henry
his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Again, it was the Emperor Charles V that presented the
biggest obstacle, for he had just defeated his major European rival Francis l and taken Pope
Clement VII prisoner. To be fair to Charles, he was more interested in Italy than what happened
to his aunt, but Henry had been given the title "Defender of the Faith" by Pope Clement for his
efforts to keep the forces of Protestantism at bay in England. Charles was not the only one who
obviously felt that monarchs should live up to their titles, however earned.
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In his passion for the beautiful Anne and his desire for a male heir, Henry made it quite plain that
he wished for a quick divorce. Because of Wolsey's failure in the matter he was banished from
court and eventually summoned to trial on a charge of treason. He died on his way to face the
king. All his acquisitions of wealth and power had come to nought to the king's benefit, however,
Wolsey had greatly increased the work of the Court of Chancery and the Star Chamber, a court
by which the nobility was kept in check. On two occasions, he tried to get himself elected Pope,
but the dilemma of the royal divorce ultimately proved too much for him. He was thus discarded
when he was no longer useful to the king. His dismissal and the charges against him also point
out only too well the declining influence of the universal Church in politics. The growth of
nation-states independent from Rome would be a recurring theme of Europe for the next few
hundred years.
Perhaps the break away of England was inevitable. The medieval church was moribund, in a
fossilized state, out of touch with the vast changes that had been taking place in economics,
politics and social conditions. We have already had an inkling of what was to come when John
Wycliffe, during the reign of Edward III, had preached his revolutionary idea that grace could
come from a reading of the Bible and not from the benefit of Church and clergy. Dissenters
known as the Lollards were also increasing their attacks on the malpractices of the Catholic
bishops, and William Tyndale was busy translating the New Testament into English. Now, with
Henry at variance with the imprisoned and demoralized Pope, and the Catholic Church in
disarray, with the teachings of Martin Luther reaching into all corners of Europe, the floodgates
of the Reformation were let loose.
Henry obtained his divorce regardless of Charles V and the Pope. He simply used the authority
of the state and the so-named Reformation Parliament that was first called in 1529 and that, for
the next seven years, effectively destroyed the medieval church in England. In 1533, Henry
married the pregnant Anne Boleyn and upon the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
appointed Thomas Cranmer to do his bidding in that office. The official break with Rome came
in April 1533 with the passing of the Act of Restraint of Appeals that decreed "this realm of
England is an empire." One month later Archbishop Cranmer declared that the Kings' marriage
to Catherine of Aragon was null and void. Ann Boleyn was duly crowned Queen, giving birth to
Elizabeth but three months later. The Pope duly excommunicated both Cranmer and Henry.
After 1534, events moved even more rapidly. The Act of Supremacy of that year declared that
the king was the Supreme Head of the Church of England and the Pope officially designated
merely as the Bishop of Rome. There was no Catholic uprising in Britain; Henry still considered
himself a staunch Catholic, retaining his title of "Defender of the Faith" and obviously proud of
such an appellation. There was no break with Rome on matters of dogma, the king himself had
no great desire for a complete separation, but matters came to a head with the rise to power of
Thomas Cromwell, considered by many to be the architect of the English Reformation.
Cromwell was ruthless in carrying out the policies of Henry, but it is safe to say he probably
sneaked in many of his own. Though Sir Thomas Moore, a man initially beloved of the king and
Bishop Fisher were executed for refusing to acknowledge Henry's claim as Head of the Church
in England, twenty-two other Englishmen were also burned at the stake for refusing to accept
Catholicism. Then, when fears arose of an expected invasion from France, the dissolution of the
monasteries in Britain proceeded at a rapid pace, for they were an easy target to satisfy Henry's
need for vast amounts of money for coastal defenses and for the strengthening the navy. Wolsey
himself had begun the matter, mainly for ready cash to found chanceries and schools, but the
work was willingly carried to a rapid fruition by Cromwell.
The picturesque ecclesiastic ruins found all over the English landscape can give but little hint of
the former grandeur and wealth of the great monasteries. Perhaps they had owned as much as
one quarter of the arable land of the nation, and the amount of jewels, church plate, relics and
gold artifacts they also possessed must have been enormous, to say nothing of their vast herds
and flocks and huge swathes of the best arable land in the country. Henry was determined to
have it all, thus the monasteries were destroyed and their lands taken over by the Crown. In three
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years, two acts of dissolution brought to an end hundreds of years of monastic influence in the
island of Britain. A feeble protest from Catholics in the North, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace
was easily suppressed.
An orgy of iconoclasm now took place in the land. In 1538, the same year that the last
monasteries were dissolved, Henry's chief minister and architect of the Reformation in England
issued injunctions stating that every parish church should have an English bible and shrines were
to be destroyed. Thomas Cromwell relished his new duties in seeing that the crown replaced the
pope as the arbiter of religious affairs throughout England. The destruction of so much that was a
priceless heritage of an ancient nation is to be lamented. The value of so much art, books and
architecture meant nothing to those who carried out Cromwell's work and the smashing of holy
places even included the shrine of Thomas Becket, perhaps the holiest place of pilgrimage in all
of Britain.
Many beside the king and his nobles were happy to see the monasteries disappear and the power
of the Church diminished. Abbots lived like princes; their dwellings were more like baronial
palaces than religious houses. Piety seemed notably absent from their magnificent edifices and
vast land holdings. The bishop's house at St. David's rivaled the cathedral itself in grandeur. It
wasn't only the great scholar Erasmus who decried the obscene wealth of the great religious
houses in England, writing of them, in his well-read "Enchiridion" (1504), that "the monastic life
should not be equated with the virtuous life "and that the monasteries themselves were "a
backward-looking anachronism, out of date, out of sympathy, and ripe to fall." And fall they did.
Their vast land-holdings were now sold off to those who could afford them and a new, rich
landed aristocracy was set in place to dominate England's rural scene for centuries.
As the long period of monasticism ended in England, the nation of Wales also lost any hopes of
regaining its independence. An expression that describes a Welshman who pretends to have
forgotten his Welsh or who affects the loss of his national identity in order to succeed in English
society or who wishes to be thought well of among his friends is "Dic-Sion-Dafydd." The term
was unknown in 16th century Wales but, owing to the harsh penal legislation imposed upon its
inhabitants, after the revolt of Owain Glyndwr in the previous century, it had become necessary
for many Welshmen to petition Parliament to be "made English" so that they could enjoy
privileges restricted to Englishmen, including the right to buy and hold land according to English
law.
Such petitions may have been distasteful to the patriotic Welsh, but for the ambitious and
socially mobile gentry rapidly emerging in Wales and on the Marches, they were a necessary
step for any chance of advancement. In the military, of course, Welsh mercenaries, no longer
fighting under Glyndwr for an independent Wales, had been highly sought after by Henry V for
his campaigns in France, and the skills of the Welsh archers in such battles as Agincourt are
legendary. Such examples of allegiance to their commander, the English sovereign, went a long
way in dispelling any latent thoughts of independence and helped paved the way for the
overwhelming Welsh allegiance to the Tudors.
When Henry Tudor ascended the throne as Henry VII, the foundations of the great Welsh
landed-estates had been laid and much of the day-to-day affairs of the nation were controlled by
its landed squires, many of whom had descended from English families and intermarried with
their Welsh counterparts. Their loyalties were with the Crown or Parliament or both, but not with
their native country; they came to associate the latter with loyalty to the Tudor sovereigns. Either
the Welsh realized the hopelessness of their position; or their leaders, in true "Dic-Sion-Dafydd"
style, were too busy enjoying the fruits of cooperation with London. The year 1536 produced no
great trauma for the Welsh; all the ingredients for its acceptance had been put in place long
before.
The so-called "Act of Union" of that year, and its corrected version of 1543 seemed inevitable.
More than one historian has pointed out that union with England had really been achieved by the
"Statute of Rhuddlan" in 1284. The new legislation was welcomed by many in Wales, by the
gentry, commercial interests and religious reformers alike, and why not? Didn't it state that
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"Persons born or to be born in the said Principality ... of Wales shall have and enjoy and inherit
all and singular Freedoms, Liberties, Rights, Privileges and Laws ... as other the King's subjects
have, enjoy or inherit."
By the Act, "finally and for all time" the principality of Wales was incorporated into the
kingdom of England. A major part of this decision was to abolish any legal distinction between
the people on either side of the new border. From henceforth, English law would be the only law
recognised by the courts of Wales. In addition, for the placing of the administration of Wales in
the hands of the Welsh gentry, it was necessary to create a Welsh ruling class not only fluent in
English, but who would use it in all legal and civil matters.
Thus inevitably, the Welsh ruling class would be divorced from the language of their country.
But, as pointed out earlier, their eyes were focused on what London or other large cities of
England had to offer, not upon what remained as crumbs to be scavenged in Wales itself. The
Welsh people were without a government of their own, a capital city, or even a town large
enough to attract an opportunistic urban middle class, and saddled with a language "nothing like
nor consonant to the natural mother tongue used within this realm." A language that persistently
refused to die.
The rise of the Welsh middle classes was mirrored in England, where the political privileges of
the old nobility were being drastically curtailed and a new class was rising rapidly. Through his
chief ministers, Henry continued to increase the powers of the Star Chamber at the national level,
and saw to it that the Justices of the Peace, recruited from the gentry, carried out the king's
commands at the local level. The king's foreign intrigues meant that he was forced to sell off
most of his newly acquired monastic possessions. The landed gentry were the beneficiaries in
more ways than one; for the king's repeated demands upon them for cash, and their repeated
insistence on the granting of privileges in return, led only to an increase in the powers of
parliament at the expense of the Crown. In 1544, the name "The House of Lords" first appeared,
an indication of the rapid rise of the other, lower house "The House of Commons," which from
now on was always ready to challenge the Lords' power (as well as the King's).
Much of Henry's need for money came from his wars in Scotland during the years 1542 and
1546 and with Scotland's ally, France. In 1488 in Scotland, James IV had come to the throne at
the age of fifteen, with Earl Douglas acting as Regent. The EarlÍs cronies and conspirators
received rich rewards for their services. One of these was the minor Laird Hepburn of Hailes,
who became Earl of Bothwell and Lord High Admiral. We shall read more about the Bothwell
later.
James IV had grand ambitions. His country enjoyed enormous prestige holding the balance of
power between constantly warring England and France. He believed that Scotland could lead the
way in the glorious cause of freeing Constantinople from the Turks. Accordingly, as a start, he
had a large fleet built, including the mighty warship the Great Michael. He thus began a Scottish
ship building industry that would become the envy of the world in a later era. In order to carry
out his grandiose schemes in Eastern Europe, James first had to establish peaceable relations
with England, his powerful neighbor to the south.
In 1501, James was twenty-eight years old. It was time to marry. He chose Margaret Tudor, the
fourteen year-old daughter of Henry VII, following an agreement signed between the two
monarchs that promised to be a treaty of perpetual peace. The Pope undertook to excommunicate
whoever broke his pledged word. The ceremony took place at Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh,
attended by many dignitaries from England. All seemed well.
James continued to use his kingdom as peacemaker between England and France. His efforts
gave him the title "Rex Pacificator." When the Pope, the King of Spain and the Doge of Venice
formed a Holy League against France, it was joined by Henry VII of England, the father-in-law
of the King of Scotland. James did not join the league, however; he was convinced that the
survival of France was essential to the stability of Europe. Thus he renewed the Auld Alliance
that had begun in 1422 under the Regency of Albany. When France appealed to Scotland for
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help, as it had done when Buchan responded so magnificently in an earlier time, James unwisely
sent an ultimatum to the English king.
Henry's response, though typical of the English monarch, must have startled James and the
whole of Scotland. He declared himself to be "the verie owner of Scotland," a kingdom held by
the Scottish king only "by homage." This was too much for a proud Scot to bear, and it was
answered by James's march on England at the head of a large army in September 1513. So much
for the peace treaty that was "to endure forever." The result was Flodden, one of the most
disastrous battles in Scottish history.
James' own natural son, Alexander, thousands of the best and brightest young men, many of its
bravest and strongest Highland chiefs, great Church leaders, and many Earls and Lords lost their
lives in the calamitous battle at Flodden. Though no one knows what happened to James's body,
a legend quickly developed in Scotland to match those in Wales concerning Arthur and Glyndwr,
he was not dead, but one day James would return to lead his country again. Thus a typical Celtic
myth grew out of what people saw as the refusal of a Welsh King (Henry VIII) to secure a proper
burial for the body of a Scottish king (James IV).
Scotland now had no king and no army. As James V was still a baby, Queen Margaret assumed
the Regency. However, in 1514, in a move that brought a surprising change of fortune for the
country for which she showed little affection, she married the Earl of Angus and was succeeded
as Regent by the French-educated Duke of Albany, the nephew of James III. Albany (who
headed the National or French Party), continued the alliance with France, a country that had
somehow extricated itself from its previous grave danger by the failure of its enemies to
formulate a united front. After a series of plots against Albany by Margaret and her husband
were foiled, the miserable, unfortunate Queen was forced to flee to England (the couple had
planned to kidnap the young James V). This gave Margaret's brother Henry one more excuse to
continue his policies of interfering in Scottish affairs. In 1524, Albany returned to France.
Chaos returned to Scotland. A series of battles between the Douglases and the Hamiltons,
including one fought in the streets of Edinburgh, had left the mighty Douglas clan in control of
the young king and thus of Scotland. James, however, who had declared himself ready to rule at
the age of fourteen, escaped his captors and arrived at Stirling. He vowed vengeance against
Angus Douglas whom he drove out of Scotland to seek refuge with the English king. James V
could now begin to restore order to his suffering nation. He started by wisely agreeing to a truce
with England.
In the meantime the effects of the Reformation were beginning to have their serious and longlasting effects upon Scotland. In the struggle of Protestantism versus Catholicism, there was a
mad scramble for a marriage alliance with the Scottish king. Keeping the idea of the Auld
Alliance in mind, he elected for Madeleine, the daughter of the French King Francois I and when
she died six months later, he took as his bride another French princess, Marie de Guise-Lorraine.
Sadly for future Scottish history, she bore him no sons.
Henry VIII of England had the same seeming misfortune in lacking a male heir. He became more
and more aggressive in his policies toward Scotland. By 1534 he had broken with Rome, was
getting ready to totally absorb Wales into the English realm and had plans to turn Scotland
against France by making it into a Protestant nation. When James was offered the crown of
Ireland in 1542, Henry took an army north and proclaimed himself Lord Superior of Scotland.
He met with and defeated the small, dispirited army of James at Solway Moss.
From his retreat at Falkland, the sad King James heard the news that his longed for heir was not
to be; his wife had given him a daughter. Upon his consequent death, the young girl was
proclaimed Queen of Scotland. So in 1542, Mary, Queen of Scots entered the world in much the
same sad circumstances as she was to leave it forty-five years later. After James' death, Mary's
mother, Marie de Guise, was determined to rule with a strong hand, but by her attempts to stamp
out Protestantism in Scotland, she only invited further English activities in her country. Marie
failed, for though an invading English army arrived too late to rescue a Protestant garrison holed
up at St. Andrew's, it crushed the Royal Scottish army at Pinkie, near Edinburgh. Further
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hostilities were ended in 1549 by the Treaty of Boulogne between England and France that also
effected the withdrawal of English troops from Scotland.
By that time, Henry VIII had been dead for two years. Jane Seymour had died soon after giving
birth to Edward and Henry had remarried three times. Thomas Cromwell then chose Anne of
Cleves as a bride for Henry, a bad choice for the Lord Chancellor and for the king, who despised
his plain "Flanders Mare." The marriage was never consummated and quickly annulled by
Parliament. Cromwell lost his head over the affair, but he had done his work for his master the
king. The Reformation had been firmly established in England and the power of the Catholic
Church irrevocably broken. The aging, gout-ridden, obese Henry had then married Catherine
Howard, soon to be beheaded for adultery and Catherine Parr, his last wife, who outlived him.
Young Henry VIII had been considered a "Renaissance Prince," skilled in the military arts,
deeply interested in music, theology and learning. Under Elizabeth, herself skilled in music and
master of more than a few languages, courtiers became patrons of the arts, inviting great
European artists such as Holbein and Hillard to paint their portraits. Traditional medieval music
gave way to new forms of composition and performance under the skilled guidance of William
Byrd and Orlando Gibbons. Great houses such as Longleat, Hatfield, Hardwick Hall followed
Wolsey's magnificent palace at Hampton Court, in which to show off the new paintings,
decorative arts and advances in architectural technique. There were great achievements in
literature and drama.
Poetry was led by Edmund Spenser (1552-99) whose masterpiece The Faerie Queen was inspired
by Elizabeth herself, and in which she is portrayed as a symbol of the English nation. In addition
to producing Spenser, her reign was the age of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Raleigh, Sir Philip
Sydney, Francis Bacon and John Donnne, to mention a few of those who would have been great
in any age. In the midst of this outpouring of talent, the Virgin Queen found herself replacing the
Virgin Mary as an object of devotion among many of her English subjects.
A Golden Age indeed, yet at the time of Elizabeth's death in 1603, it was possible to see the end
of the Tudor system of government. The high costs of wars, years of depression brought on by
high taxes, bad harvests, soaring prices, peasant unrest and the resulting growth of parliamentary
influence and prestige in becoming the instrument by which the will of the landed classes could
not only be heard but carried out against the royal prerogative meant that great political changes
were afoot in the land. The Stuarts were to suffer from the increase in Parliamentary power and
the diminution of the royal prerogative.
СРСП-15
From Reformation to Restoration (cont'd.)
Edward VI (1547-1553)
Another great "if" for English history was presented by the early death of Edward. At the time,
no one could possibly see that the greatest Tudor monarch of them all would turn out to be
Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the ill-fated Ann Boleyn. English hopes for a strong monarchy
centered on Edward's survival. During his minority, despite Henry's wish that a council of
ministers should govern, the Duke of Somerset (Edward's uncle) made himself Lord Protector.
He continued the late king's policy of religious changes, furthering the Protestant reforms.
Cranmer's "Book of Common Prayer" was made compulsory in all churches and the Latin mass
abolished. These acts that were strenuously resisted in many Catholic areas of the country, not to
mention Ireland, forever faithful to Rome, and because of this, Ireland was forever suspect in
English eyes as a center of rebellion.
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In England, attempts to impose the new Prayer book led to a serious revolt in Cornwall and
Devon. This was joined by another uprising in Norfolk against rising prices and social injustices.
To add to Somerset's woes, he embroiled England in a war with Scotland, as ever allied to
France, and got himself defeated in battle and deposed and executed at home. Of the state of
affairs, Sir Thomas Moore regarded the fight for influence and spoils between the great families
of England as nothing more than "a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities
under the name and title of a commonwealth."
After Somerset's death, however, the country was then run by a much more able administrator,
John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland. He extricated his country from the
disastrous war with Scotland, returned Boulogne to France and re-established social order in
England. Protestantism now became official with the new Prayer book of 1552 and a new Act of
Uniformity passed. But sickly Edward was dying.
To Northumberland's great chagrin, the rightful heir to the throne was Mary, Henry's only
surviving child by Catherine of Aragon and a committed Catholic. He thus persuaded Edward to
declare Mary illegitimate and to name Lady Jane Grey as heir (the granddaughter of Henry VIII's
sister and married to his son Dudley). Poor Lady Jane, shy and unsuited for her role, was not
supported by the country, who rallied to Mary, a Tudor and thus rightful sovereign. Mary arrived
in London to great acclaim to take her throne.
Mary Tudor (1553-1558)
Mary took her throne with high hopes of restoring England to Catholicism. It has been said that
she took her religion too seriously. In any case, she was too late, the Reformation had taken firm
root throughout Northern Europe and in much of England, where her sacred duty to return the
country to the Catholic fold was sure to be violently opposed. There were not too many in
England who wished to return to a church that, as late as 1514, had condemned a dead man for
heresy. To further her aims, Mary, already middle-aged, married Philip of Spain, the son of
Charles V, who had defended her mother Catherine's marital rights. To most Englishmen, this act
presaged an inevitable submission of their country to foreign rule. It was not a popular marriage.
Pious Mary then set about having Parliament repeal the Act of Supremacy, reinstate heresy laws
and petition for reunion with Rome; the Latin Mass was restored and Catholic bishops reinstated.
Rebellion was inevitable, and though easily crushed, the peasant uprising of Thomas Wyatt
convinced the Queen that obedience to the throne had to be established by fire and sword. The
orgy of burnings of heretics began.
The fires that Mary ordered to be lit at Smithfield put to death such Protestant leaders and men of
influence as Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper, but also hundreds of lesser men who refused
to adopt the Catholic faith. The entire country became enraged and fearful. Mary's failure as
Queen was ensured. Her marriage to Philip only made matters worse for it intensified the
English hatred of foreigners, and by this time, of Catholicism in general. Parliament was rushed
to declare that should Mary die without an heir, Philip would have no claim to the English
throne. The Hapsburg Philip himself spent as little time in "obstinate" England as possible, got
himself all involved in war with France in which Calais, England's last continental outpost, was
lost forever. Calais hadn't been much of a possession but its loss was a grievous insult to the
English nation. When "Bloody Mary" died in November, 1558, it seemed as if the whole country
rejoiced.
The Virgin Queen, Elizabeth l (1558-1603)
Elizabeth became Queen of England at the age of twenty-five determined to show that it was
neither unholy nor unnatural for "a woman to reign and have empire above men." She had many
problems to settle, for the whole nation had gone through a period of social discord, political
shenanigans and international failures, and was still in a state of revulsion over the Smithfield
martyrs. Fortunately, the determined, charismatic and reasoned woman was adequately equipped
for the enormous tasks ahead of her. Furthermore, though insistent on restoring royal supremacy
and severing the ties with Rome, she was also willing to compromise on certain religious issues,
putting her in another league from the late unmourned Mary.
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The new queen was astute enough to realize that she needed the support of the common people,
the majority of whom were overwhelmingly Protestant and anti-Rome. Her own feelings had to
be put aside, though she did allow some of the ceremonies associated with Catholicism to
remain. The communion service could be a Mass for those who wished. The religious settlement
may have not satisfied everyone, but it satisfied most; above all, there was to be no return to the
great distress and acrimony of Queen Mary's unfortunate reign. Even the rebellion of the
Catholic nobility in the North created no great trauma for the Queen, for her nobles were better
Englishmen than Catholics. Loyalty to England, expressed through her Queen, was stronger than
loyalty to Rome. Those who bucked the trend, such as the Earls of Northumberland and
Westmoreland paid for their insolence with their heads.
Elizabeth was served well by loyal citizens. One of her greatest assets was her ability to choose
the right people to carry out her policies. In this, she had the luck of her father Henry, but unlike
him, she was also able to have such men serve her loyally and efficiently for life, rather than
carry out their own self-serving policies. She was particularly fortunate in finding William Cecil,
who served first as her principal secretary and later as her lord treasurer. He was a man of
amazing talents and industry; quite simply, he made governing into an honored profession. It has
been astutely pointed out that, unlike Lords Leicester and Essex and the others who flattered the
Queen, Cecil was no court ornament. His ability to compromise in matters of religion also stood
him in good stead, and put him, like Elizabeth herself, slightly ahead of his time.
It was obvious to Elizabeth that in order to govern effectively, she needed to find a middle way
between the extremes of Geneva and Rome. As Queen, she insisted on the retention of royal
privilege. Her anti-Catholicism was heavily influenced by her desire to keep her country free
from domination by Spain, rather than by any personal dictates of conscience. She thus chose the
middle way of the Anglican Church, rather than accept the harsh doctrines of such men as Calvin
and Knox, who would destroy much that was precious and holy in men's minds.
John Knox had arrived back in Scotland in 1544 carrying his huge two-handed sword along with
his Bible. From the teachings and intractability of such men, the Reformation in Scotland had
taken a much different path than it was to take in England after Mary, for Elizabeth was no
Calvinist. Remaining the head of the Church, she promised not to "make windows into men's
souls," and her Supremacy Bill and the Uniformity Bills of 1559, that made the Church of
England law, substituted fines and penalties for disobedience, not the usual burnings and
banishment.
One irritating and persistent problem that Elizabeth had to face was that of Mary, Queen of
Scots. We have noted the success of John Knox in Scotland, and when the Protestant Nobles
attacked the French-backed government forces of Mary, Elizabeth was naturally delighted when
the French were driven out of Scotland. Queen Mary was not so happy. In 1548, the Auld
Alliance had been immeasurably strengthened when as little Princess Mary, she had ended her
period of moving from place to place for safety by going to France as future bride of the
Dauphin. "France and Scotland," stated the French King, (reportedly leaping 'for blitheness') are
now one country."
Catholic Mary returned to Scotland as Queen in August 1561. Widowed at age eighteen, she was
no longer Queen of France, but thoroughly French in outlook and education. Scotland had
undergone a major transformation in her absence. Knox had done his work well. The Queen's
sprightly, impulsive (and apparently highly-sexed) nature quickly put her at odds with the
austere, Puritan divines who wished to keep a tight hold on the hearts and minds of the newlyconverted majority of Scottish people.
Edward VI protestant reforms book of common prayer catholic sir thomas moore john dudley
lady jane grey mary tudor act of supremacy bloody mary virgin queen Elizabeth I smithfield
martyrs william cecil john knox church of england auld alliance mary queen of scots In 1565,
Mary's complete lack of foresight caused her to marry her younger cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord
Darnley, who had practically nothing to commend him either as husband or king. It wasn't only
Protestants who were furious. When Darnley, immature and seemingly completely lacking in
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wisdom and intelligence, stabbed to death Mary's Italian secretary Riccio in a fit of teenage
jealousy, the fires were lit for a never-ending saga of intrigue and misfortune. In 1567, Darnley's
body was found in the wreckage of his house at Kirk o Field which had been destroyed in a
mysterious explosion. He had been strangled to death.
Heavily implicated in the murder was a "bold, reckless Protestant of considerable charm" James
Hepburn, fourth Earl of Bothwell, Lord High Admiral of Scotland. Mary then made her second
grievous error: she married Bothwell. Now it was the turn of Mary's Catholic subjects to be
furious. The young Queen, upon whom so many hopes had depended, had managed to alienate
everybody. A Protestant army was raised to force Mary to abdicate and at age twenty-four, after
she had been led in humiliation through the streets of Edinburgh, Mary Queen of Scots gave up
her throne in favor of her baby son, who was immediately crowned as James VI. Bothwell's life
was saved only by his escape to Norway. The Earl of Moray, Mary's half-brother James Stewart,
now became Regent.
Mary, who had been held prisoner by the Scottish lords, made her escape from Lochleven Castle,
but the small army she managed to raise was defeated by Moray. She then made another
grievous error when she fled to England to seek refuge with the proud and easily jealous Queen
Elizabeth who promptly imprisoned her unfortunate cousin. Mary should have gone to France,
for as long as she lived, her own claim to the English throne made her a potentially deadly rival
to Elizabeth l. Her endless schemes to recover the Scottish throne and to depose Elizabeth,
including the Ridolfi Plot that got the unwise Duke of Norfolk executed for complicity, and the
Throgmorton Plot, in which Pope Gregory XIII may have been involved, finally ensured her
execution in 1587.
Elizabeth had far less trouble with Wales, peaceably incorporated into the realm of England by
the Acts of Union under Henry VIII. Welsh men were found in strategic positions in court,
specially favored by the Queen. Welshman William Cecil and others were included in the
partnership that was forming a new and imperial British identity. In the expansion of England
overseas, Welshman John Dee played an important part, for his accounts of Prince Madoc's
supposed voyages to the New World were eagerly seized by Elizabeth's Court officials as
justification for their war against Spain and proof of their legitimacy of their involvement in the
Americas. Dee claimed that Elizabeth was rightful sovereign of the Atlantic Empire.
Welsh people were proud of their contributions to the nation. They were also people of "the
Book," having received the Holy Bible in their own language and any attempts to make the
Counter-Reformation productive in Wales failed miserably. William Salesbury had published his
translation of the main texts of the Prayer Book into Welsh in 1551. When John Penry pleaded
with the Queen and her Parliament to have the whole Bible translated, he found a sympathetic
audience, for by this method, Protestantism could be firmly established in Wales, a country that
formed a natural bulwark between England and the ever-rebellious Ireland.
Wales got her Bible in 1588, the brilliant achievement of Bishop William Morgan eleven years
after Jesus College had been founded at Oxford to channel the flood of Welsh scholars flocking
to the universities. With its own Bible and its language secure, there was little need for the Welsh
to join in the fight to try to restore England to Catholicism. Besides, in the Tudors, they had
members of their own national clan in firm charge of the whole nation.
The difficulties with Wales and Scotland were smoothed out. Ireland remained a problem. It was
a far different country, almost a different world, one in which time had stood still for centuries.
Fiercely tribal, loyal to the Catholic Church, it was a country that resisted all attempts to impose
Protestantism. It was a country that England did not know how to govern, for it was a country
that did not know how to govern itself. Yet, England's war with Spain meant that Ireland had to
be controlled somehow, and it was somehow that Elizabeth extended her authority over a wide
area of her Western neighbor. Sorrowfully, the Elizabethan dream of creating a loyal,
modernized state of Ireland, perhaps in the Welsh model, completely failed despite the wellintended efforts of some of her most able men.
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The great Irish chieftains were courted by Elizabeth in the hope that they could be used to bridge
the gap between the native Irish and those that were sent from England on their "civilizing"
mission. One of them, Hugh O'Neill, the second Earl of Tyrone (who was a personal friend of Sir
Philip Sydney), in return for his loyalty to the Crown, demanded that chieftain rule be preserved
and that the Irish people should be allowed freedom of worship as Roman Catholics. Elizabeth's
refusal forced Tyrone to appeal to Philip of Spain for help.
Though the armada sent by Philip was turned back by storms, it encouraged the Irish to
rebellion, driving out the English from all their lands except the Pale, a small strip along the east
coast. The Queen's response to this threat of an independent Ireland under Spanish patronage was
to send the Earl of Essex at the head of a large army. He failed miserably and returned to
England in disgrace. It was left to Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, to restore the situation, and
his successful attempts at pacification and the surrender of Tyrone in 1603 completed the
Elizabethan subjugation of Ireland. The best we can say about the whole sorry adventure is that
those who were busy trying to bring civil order to Ireland used the experience in their planting
and colonizing of the New World, where they found a population far less able to withstand these
ventures.
Alongside that of the ever-troublesome, unsolvable Irish question, how to deal with Mary, Queen
of Scots, and the problem of the religious settlement, Elizabeth also had the task of defending the
realm. This meant a twenty-year war against Spain, the most powerful nation in Europe. Again,
the Queen of England was lucky, for Philip II of Spain had proved his incompetence as a ruler
time and time again. He had practically ruined Spain in material resources, despite the bounty of
wealth streaming in from South and Central America.
The theocracy that was Spain, decadent and moribund, despite its large armies and uncountable
wealth, would prove no match for the vibrant, economically self-sufficient, fiercely proud and
loyal island nation that was England under Elizabeth. Her navy, grown modern and efficient
under Henry VIII was able to run rings around the cumbersome, ill-led, poorly trained forces put
out by Philip in his attempt to conquer England. In 1588, the defeat of the seemingly-invincible
Armada, though aided by the intolerable English weather, was inevitable. Its defeat also sealed
the fate of any Catholic revival in England; from now on, a return to Rome would be out of the
question. (A lesson that the later Catholic Stuarts were slow to learn).
It was thus that England was saved from domination by foreign powers, be they that of Rome or
that of Spain (or a combination of both) or even Scotland. Elizabeth's long reign also saw her
country undergo a remarkable economic growth, and a complete sea-change from the financial
and political chaos (in addition to the religious quagmire) that had been the norm when she first
took the Crown. Industry and trade prospered under the guidance of men such as Secretary Cecil
(later Lord Burghley), one of the most efficient administrators that England was ever privileged
to enjoy. His son Robert was one of the chief ministers responsible for carrying out the policies
of James l. And in an interesting note, one of the same family, Lord Cranborne, a senior
hereditary peer in the House of Lords, was dismissed from the shadow cabinet of that august
body by Tory leader William Hague in December, 1998 for agreeing to a compromise deal with
Labour leader Tony Blair over the reform of the House.
Remarkably free from corruption, Cecil became rich and prosperous in the service of the Crown
and his loyalty was assured. It didn't do his economic policies any harm either, when the Duke of
Alva began his reign of terror in the Netherlands, for the bankers and capitalists of Antwerp
flocked to London to find a new and more secure international money and credit market. Only a
year after the Northern Rising, Thomas Gresham had opened his new institution in London, the
Royal Exchange, later to make the city the financial capital of the world. Cecil also encouraged
the fishing industry, the source of England's navy and backbone of its sea power. Compulsory
weekly fish days were increased from two to three "so the sea coast should be strong with men
and habitations and the fleet flourish."
With such encouragement, English sailors began their mastery of the world's oceans. If William
Cecil can be regarded as the great conservator of the Queen's strength, her seamen can be seen as
75
its great expanders. It can be safely said that whatever Cecil did as pilot of the ship of state was
made possible through English sailors. Though little more than pirates, these seamen laid the
foundations of their nation's naval superiority which was to last, with few exceptions, for
centuries and which later led to the acquisition of Britain's vast overseas empire. One of them,
Sir John Hawkins, from the Plymouth family of sailor adventurers, was the first to show that
English mariners could outmatch those of Spain, and it was not too long before the so-called
Spanish monopoly in the New World was successfully challenged. The papal grant of 1493 that
had divided newly-discovered lands and oceans between Spain and Portugal was conveniently
ignored by Englishmen, and not just for religious reasons.
Hawkins was no John Cabot, who had discovered Newfoundland in 1497 in search of a
Northwest Passage; he was no more than a slave trader, in search of riches. But so was Martin
Frobisher, who made a series of voyages to Canada in the 1570's. So were those intrepid sailors
and merchants who braved the Baltic to establish the Muscovy Company in 1555 to trade with
Russia. On one of his voyages of plunder, some of Hawkins' ships had been captured in the Gulf
of Mexico by the Spanish viceroy. Only two ships escaped, but one of them had young Francis
Drake aboard.
A Spanish embargo then had the effect of the English rag-tag navy playing havoc with Spanish
merchandise and shipping in the English Channel. Drake, now an experienced mariner grown
bold, and others of his ilk then turned their attentions to disrupt the Spanish treasure fleets
returning from South America. There followed a veritable explosion of English maritime
achievements. For example, Drake's search for treasures led to his circumnavigating the globe
(1577-78), Sir Humphrey Gilbert took settlers to Newfoundland in 1583; Sir Walter Raleigh
organized his expedition to Virginia four years later, John Davis travelled into the northern
regions of the world, John Cavendish emulated Drake's epic voyage by sailing around the world,
the East India Company was founded and English culture and ideas spread east and west.
In the midst of all these successes, in which England thought of herself as divinely favored,
perhaps we should also point out, that the passage of the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 showed
only too well that in the midst of prosperity and the rise of a wealthy middle class, poverty was
everywhere rearing its ugly head in the land. The transition of the English landscape by the
enclosures of land (mainly to aid the wool industry) had thrown the traditional life of the yeoman
farmer into turmoil.
The large market for English cloth on the Continent, brought in through Antwerp, increased the
speed of land enclosures. The acquisition of vast land holding became a commercial venture and
unemployment became rife. Thousands of landless peasants were now thronging into the cities
and towns looking for handouts. It is astonishing that the Queen and her Council were able to
ride out the climate in which a major revolt seemed inevitable. Fear of foreign intervention
played its part in keeping England internally peaceful. It had also experienced a remarkable
artistic renaissance, perhaps made possible by the growth of a large, new lawyer and gentry
class.
Young Henry VIII had been considered a "Renaissance Prince," skilled in the military arts,
deeply interested in music, theology and learning. Under Elizabeth, herself skilled in music and
master of more than a few languages, courtiers became patrons of the arts, inviting great
European artists such as Holbein and Hillard to paint their portraits. Traditional medieval music
gave way to new forms of composition and performance under the skilled guidance of William
Byrd and Orlando Gibbons. Great houses such as Longleat, Hatfield, Hardwick Hall followed
Wolsey's magnificent palace at Hampton Court, in which to show off the new paintings,
decorative arts and advances in architectural technique. There were great achievements in
literature and drama.
Poetry was led by Edmund Spenser (1552-99) whose masterpiece The Faerie Queen was inspired
by Elizabeth herself, and in which she is portrayed as a symbol of the English nation. In addition
to producing Spenser, her reign was the age of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Raleigh, Sir Philip
Sydney, Francis Bacon and John Donnne, to mention a few of those who would have been great
76
in any age. In the midst of this outpouring of talent, the Virgin Queen found herself replacing the
Virgin Mary as an object of devotion among many of her English subjects.
A Golden Age indeed, yet at the time of Elizabeth's death in 1603, it was possible to see the end
of the Tudor system of government. The high costs of wars, years of depression brought on by
high taxes, bad harvests, soaring prices, peasant unrest and the resulting growth of parliamentary
influence and prestige in becoming the instrument by which the will of the landed classes could
not only be heard but carried out against the royal prerogative meant that great political changes
were afoot in the land. The Stuarts were to suffer from the increase in Parliamentary power and
the diminution of the royal prerogative.
СРСП-16
From Reformation to Restoration (cont'd.)
James VI (1603-1625)
Elizabeth's reign finally came to an end. The mighty Queen was laid to rest in March 1603 with
James of Scotland declared as rightful heir. James journeyed to London to claim what he had
longed for all his life, the throne of England. He greatly favored a union of the two kingdoms
and the new national flag, the Union Jack, bore the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George. But
though the Estates passed an Act of Union in 1607, it was a hundred years before a treaty was
signed. After the glorious successes enjoyed under Elizabeth, marred by the failure to bring
Ireland into her fold, there were many in England who had no wish to merge their identity with
what they considered to be yet another inferior nation, let alone one that had been allied with
Spain and France for such long periods in its history.
Whatever the English thought of their northern neighbors, the Scottish king had taken the throne
of England without rancor. James VI was perfectly happy in the seat of power at Whitehall. His
troubles with the Scottish Presbyterians, however, were nowhere near at an end. James' attempt
to impose the Five Articles on the Scots, dealing with matters of worship and religious
observances was met with strong opposition. He went ahead anyway, and pushed through his
reforms at a in 1618. Typically, they were systematically ignored throughout Scotland.
It is important to remember that during the reign of James as King of both Scotland and England,
the two nations retained their separate parliaments and privy councils. They passed their own
laws and enjoyed their own law courts, had their own national church, their own ways of levying
taxes and regulating trade and to a certain extent, they could pursue their own foreign policies.
Scotland itself was practically two distinct nations. There was a huge division between Highland
and Lowland. JamesÍ attempts to persuade the clan chiefs to adopt the Protestant faith was a
failure. They clung to the military habits of their ancestors and continued the Gaelic tongue when
most of Scotland had abandoned it in favor of English.
Despite such setbacks, James' twenty-year experience as the King of Scotland should have put
him in good stead as monarch in London. But England was not Scotland; its government had
progressed along different lines. In particular, the concept of the divine right of kings was not a
major belief of those who held power at Westminster. There, it was king and Parliament that was
the source of all laws, not the king alone. There was also the continuing religious problem, with
both Catholic and Protestant factions vying for his support. James called an early conference at
Hampton Court to listen to their arguments.
In Scotland, James had insisted that his powers were divinely bestowed as one way of
counteracting the demands of both Presbyterians and Catholics. He carried this idea with him
when he came south. He did not wish to have the English state made subordinate to any Church,
whatever its religious preference. The example of Scottish Presbytery still rankled and the
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English Puritans' demand for a "reduced episcopacy" made him suspicious of their desires.
James stated emphatically, "No bishop, no king."
Accordingly, the convocation of the clergy insisted on excommunicating anyone who impugned
the royal authority, the Anglican prayer books, or the Thirty-Nine Articles that had been
confirmed by statute in 1571 during Elizabeth's reign. For the age, these were moderate demands
indeed. What was more important was the decision to issue a new translation of the Bible, and in
1611 the world received that most magnificent of all its holy books, the so-called King James
Bible, the Authorized Version.
Moderate as James considered himself in matters of religion, he still promised to harry the
Puritans out of the land. The consequent flight of many so-called Pilgrims to the Netherlands,
and in 1630 their voyage from there to the New World, along with many of their compatriots
from England, led to the establishment of the New England colonies. But more of this later. In
the meanwhile, the Catholics in England were not as accommodating. When James reintroduced
the recusancy laws that meted out penalties for not attending Church of England services, a
group of Catholics took action. Their failure, in the notorious Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when
they tried to blow up king and Parliament did more than merely ensure the commemoration by
burning Guy Fawkes in effigy every November 5th, but also led to the demands for an oath of
allegiance from Catholic recusants. This was a severe setback to their cause and an increase in
the hatred of the Catholic religion in England and those who continued to practice it.
It is to James that we can attribute much of the sorry mess in Ireland that also continues to divide
Catholics and Protestants, Nationalists and Loyalists. Anxious to expand Scotland's influence
overseas, as well as to try to establish some sense of order in a country not willing to join Wales
and Scotland as part of the British nation, the king unwisely encouraged the plantation of Ulster,
beginning in 1610. Thousands of Scots settled on lands that rightly belonged to the native
Catholic population. Their influence gave Ulster that staunchly Presbyterian character that so
strongly resists attempts at Irish reunification today. James also encouraged Scottish emigration
to Arcadia, one of the maritime provinces of Canada, part of which became Nova Scotia (New
Scotland).
It wasn't only the matter of a religion, nor the vexing problem of what to do with Ireland which
James had to deal. It was during his reign that the House of Commons first began to question the
rights of the monarchy on matters of privilege. Elizabeth had replied most forcibly to the
Common's interference on matters touching her prerogative and yet by the end of James' reign,
the situation had changed altogether. The House of Commons now not merely being a legislative
body performing this task for the monarch, or giving advice, or granting such taxes as he needed,
but possessing remarkable administrative and legislative powers of its own. The change had
come about gradually but the writing on the wall was set firmly in place even at the very
beginning of James' reign in the matter of "Goodwin v. Fortescue."
Goodwin had been denied his place in the Commons by the Court of Chancery. When the
Commons vigorously protested, James had to back down from his position that the whole
institution of Parliament was dependent upon the royal powers. Following the Goodwin case and
one concerning another Member of the Commons, Sir Thomas Shirley, the Commons were led
to state what they considered to be their privileges in "The Form of Apology and Satisfaction."
In it, they stated that James, as a foreign king, did not understand their rights which they enjoyed
by precedent and not by royal favor. It was a sign of things to come in the long struggle between
king and parliament that came to a head in the reign of Charles l.
Most of the troubles that beset James in his fight with Parliament, apart from his sexual
preferences for men such as George Villiers, whom he appointed to many high offices,
concerned the raising of money. The king's extravagance became legendary and the costs of
running the Court and the war with Spain, which James at least had the foresight to end in 1604,
led to the levying of additional customs duties. The matter of John Bate, a merchant who had
refused to pay an imposition caused a deep split between those who believed that impositions
78
were part or the king's absolute power and those who considered them to be a parliamentary
privilege.
In the dispute, Chief Justice Edward Coke thought that the judges should mediate between king
and parliament. His insistence on "a higher law background," that is the preference of common
law (common right and reason) over an act of Parliament, had an enormous effect on the future
direction of law both in England and in the American Colonies, where a supreme court could
annul legislation or executive acts as contrary to a constitution. The king could dissolve
parliament, or call it "addled," but it had to be recalled when the need arose once more to finance
England's entry into the snares of the great European conflict.
James tried hard to keep the peace in Europe. His daughter Princess Elizabeth married Frederick
the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. He also wished to marry his surviving son Charles, to the
Spanish princess Donna Maria, but the German Catholic League, supported by Spain, drove the
Protestant Frederick out of his lands. The Commons wanted a war with Spain, and a new dispute
arose as to the exercise of free speech in Parliament when James resisted their efforts to discuss
foreign policy.
To avoid war, Prince Charles visited Madrid to court the Infanta but returned humiliated along
with Villiers, now Duke of Buckingham, who urged immediate war. James then turned to France
to arrange a marriage between Charles and the French Catholic Princess Henrietta Maria (James'
oldest son, Prince Henry, had died in 1612). The Thirty Years' War began with England's
disastrous attempt to recover the Palatinate for Frederick and Elizabeth. The scholarly and
intelligent James, the most learned of all who sat on the throne of England, so full of promise
when he came to the throne, and so disappointed by so many failures at the end of his reign, died
in 1625. The failures on the Continent, and in the struggle with Parliament continued in the reign
of Charles l. The success of The Authorized Version , however, remained a magnificent legacy
of the James l, the unfortunate monarch.
Charles I (1625-1649)
At the death of James, the throne passed to Charles l, who had only himself to blame for the
troubles that would later befall him. His support of Buckingham, who continued his disastrous
attempts at making war against France and Spain, as well as his own marriage to a Catholic
princess, did not stand him in good stead with Parliament, who refused to grant him money until
he got rid of Buckingham. The king dismissed his Parliament to save his friend, using the
Crown's emergency powers to raise his revenues until expenses grew too great and Parliament
had to be recalled. Its members promptly drew up a Petition of Right to emphasize the ancient
rights of the English people, to assert that no man could be imprisoned without trial and other
clauses that later became the foundation of the United States Bill of Rights, the first ten
amendments to the Constitution.
Charles despaired of enforcing his rule on Parliament and from 1629 until 1630, he tried to rule
without it. He ended the wars with France and Spain. But as so often in history, politics were
dominated by economics, and poor harvests in England, coupled with a serious decline in the
cloth trade with the Netherlands, led to Charles's attempts to enforce the collection of Ship
Money over the whole country. He won his case against Charles Hampton, who had refused to
pay, but alienated many of the country gentry without the support of whom his later fight with
Parliament was doomed. Charles also increased the power of the clergy, and when, under
Archbishop Laud, they began to renew persecution of the ever-growing Puritan sect, including
the torture of William Prynne and other divines, a further exodus to New England took place in
the 1630's that became known as the Great Migration.
Attempts to bring the Scottish Presbyterians into line spelled the beginning of the end for
Charles, ironically at the height of his powers in 1637 with an efficient administration, more-orless financially secure and doing quite nicely without Parliament. Although born a Scot, the
Stuart Charles had very little understanding of Scottish affairs and even less of prevailing
Scottish opinion. Of the Highlands, he knew nothing at all: of the Lowlands, not enough. A
devout Episcopalian, he distrusted the Kirk and Presbyterians and greatly mistrusted democratic
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assemblies, religious or not. He completely failed to try to understand his Scottish subjects; nor
did he wish to. As one who ruled by Divine right, he believed he had the sacred duty to bring the
Scottish Kirk in line with the Church of England. It was an obligation that eventually was to cost
him dearly.
The Act of Revocation, decreed by Charles in 1625, restored the lands and titles to the Church
which had been distributed among the Scottish nobles during the upheavals of the Reformation.
It did nothing to endure the king to those who could have given him support in Scotland. Neither
did his outright, and to the Scots, outrageous demand of 1629 that religious practice in Scotland
conform to the English model. It was as if Charles were deliberately setting out to antagonize
everyone north of the border. His elaborate coronation as King of Scotland at St. Giles' Cathedral
in Edinburgh in 1633 was sufficiently "high church" to smack of popery to the assembled
congregation. It was the wrong time to raise the question of the liturgy. Charles and Archbishop
Laud went ahead anyway.
In July, 1637, the first reading of the Revised Prayer Book for Scotland was met with nothing
more than a riot. Even the Privy Council had to seek refuge from the angry mob in
Holyroodhouse. The Bishop of Brechin was able to conduct only with the aid of a pair of loaded
pistols aimed at the congregation. Charles' answer was simply to demand punishment for those
who refused to obey his orders concerning the use of the new Prayer Book. All petitioners
against the Book were to be dispersed, and all the nobles who had resisted its use were to submit
to the King's Will. The unwise and ill-advised King of England and Scotland had not reckoned
with the strength of his opposition.
In Edinburgh, the National Covenant was drawn up by a committee made up of representatives
from the clergy, the nobles, the gentry and the Scottish burghs. It was known as the Tables.
Briefly, the document, signed on what was called "the great marriage day of this nation with
God," pledged to maintain the True religion." Copies of the Covenant were carried throughout
the country; its theological implications often lost. Though it had been signed "with His
Majesty's Authority," it served almost as a declaration of independence from English rule, and let
it be known that it was not Charles' representative in Scotland who made decisions, but the Lords
of the Tables.
In November 1638, Charles met with the General Assembly in Glasgow. He didn't know what he
was in for. The Assembly deposed or excommunicated all bishops, abolished the Prayer Book as
"heathenish, Popish, Jewish and Armenian." Completely unwilling to compromise his position
on the Church, Charles once again showed his naivete by brusquely informing the Assembly that
all their decisions were invalid. To enforce his commands, he decided on war. By this further
example of rashness, he sealed his fate.
In contrast to the poorly prepared, poorly led and poorly motivated armies of the English king in
the early summer of 1639, the Scots had great numbers of experienced soldiers returning from
overseas campaigns. And they had a worthy general, Alexander Leslie, who had commanded the
army of the Swedes after the death of Gustavus Adolphus. The First Bishop's War, as it was
called, was settled, most unwillingly by Charles (who had no other choice), by the Pacification
of Berwick, by which the King agreed to refer all disputed questions to the General Assembly or
Parliament.
The Scottish Parliament wasted no time in abolishing episcopacy and freeing itself from the
King's control. When it took measures to weaken the Committee of Articles by which Charles
had tried to control it, the king again foolishly took up arms, and the Second Bishops' War
began. Without an effective army, Charles was forced to summon the English Parliament to beg
for funds. When it met, it did nothing to please the King: the famous Long Parliament impeached
and executed two of his chief supporters, Strafford and Laud. It also guaranteed its own
existence against periods of personal rule by the monarch, for it stated that no more than three
years could pass between Parliaments. More important, however, it stated that the present
Parliament could not be adjourned without its own consent. With this further whittling away of
royal prerogative, civil war threatened in England.
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Off to Scotland again went Charles to try to gain support against his own Parliament. In the land
that he had hitherto so blatantly antagonized, he distributed titles freely and reluctantly agreed to
accept the decisions of the General Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. He had no choice. In
England, where he had more support from the landed gentry, his obstinacy in resisting the Long
Parliament and his stubborn insistence on Divine Right created the conditions for the actual
outbreak of war in 1642. The Grand Remonstrance presented by Parliament had contained a long
list of political and religious grievances. Charles had the audacity to try to arrest five members of
Parliament but his attempts to locate them, and the speaker of the Houses' refusal to disclose
their hiding place marked the beginning of the Speaker's independence from the crown, another
landmark in the growth of Parliament.
At first, Scotland had no wish to get involved. The desires of the Covenanters were theological,
not political. There was also a split developing between the extremists, who viewed practically
anything at all of piety as "popery," and the moderates, led by Montrose, who reaffirmed both his
belief in the Covenant, but also his loyalty to the King. Meanwhile, Charles had gathered enough
supporters to gain many early victories against the forces of Parliament, mainly untrained levies
from the shires. Scotland was again seen as a source of aid, but this time, it was the English
Parliament, and not the king, who made the request.
Because the Covenanters wanted to establish presbytery in Ireland and England, as well as in
Scotland, the offer from the English Parliament was too good to refuse. The agreement known as
the Solemn League and Covenant, was signed in the autumn of 1643, the Scottish army was to
attack the forces of Charles in England. In return, they would receive not only 30,000 pounds a
month, but also the agreement that there would be "a reformation of religion in the Kingdoms of
England and Ireland in doctrine, worship, and government." (Wales was considered as part of
England). One term of the agreement was that popery and prelacy were to be completely
extirpated from the whole realm.
The conditions of the agreement now had to be imposed upon the English Church. Accordingly,
the Westminster Assembly was summoned to establish uniformity of worship in Scotland,
England (and Wales) and Ireland. The task was much easier in Scotland, where even to this day,
the Westminster Confession of Faith continues to serve as the basis for Presbyterian worship. It
was not as easy to implement in England and almost impossible in Ireland. A good beginning,
however, was the heavy defeat of the Royalist forces at Marston Moor by the Parliamentary
army under an up-and-coming cavalry officer named Oliver Cromwell, that had been greatly
augmented by a large force of disciplined and well-armed Scotsmen.
Then an about face took place. Montrose had been greatly disturbed by the forces of extremism.
The ancient theory of Divine Right of Kings was being severely tested. And in the Highlands of
Scotland, Presbytery did not run deep. The powerful Lord accordingly, aided by many in Ireland
and a few loyalists from the Lowlands, raised an army of Highlanders to win Scotland for the
King. The nationalist spirit was still beating in some Scottish hearts after all, and Montrose's
army, without cavalry and with no artillery, managed to completely rout an army of Covenanters
led by Lord Elcho at Tippermuir. He then occupied Glasgow.
The Royalists in England were not faring as well. Cromwell's rag-tag armies had now become
the well-trained, well-armed New Model Army (nicknamed "the Roundheads). Following their
success at Marston Moor, they won a second smashing victory over Charles at Naseby. They
then turned towards Scotland and stopped the string of successes of Montrose and his
Highlanders at Philiphaugh. Then, in May 1646, news came of the King's surrender to the
Scottish forces at Newark. There was little left for Montrose but to take ship for Norway and his
followers went back to their homes. The victorious Scots army, after having turned Charles over
to the English Parliamentary Commissioners, also returned north of the border. Everything
seemed settled.
Despite their military successes, the Covenanters were not happy with the situation. There was
little likelihood that Cromwell would establish Presbytery in England. Perhaps Charles would
have been their best chance after all. So at the end of 1647, an agreement was made between the
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Scottish Parliament and the king, whereby he would give Presbyterianism a three-year trial in
England in return for an army to help him against the Parliamentarians. Charles' joy at this
unexpected help soon turned to grief. The Scots army, led by the Duke of Hamilton duly came
south. It was utterly defeated by Cromwell at Preston, its leader executed and its followers
dispersed. Cromwell and his officers, even before the battle, had decided that it was their duty to
call Charles Stuart to account for the blood he had shed and the mischief he had done against the
Lord's cause. There was to be no room for the king in the post-war settlement.
After Preston, the Commons passed the final ordinance establishing Presbyterianism. A purge of
the moderates in Parliament, however, left the radical elements in the so-called "Rump
Parliament" that created a High Court of Justice to bring Charles to trial for high treason. His
execution, held in public before a saddened crowd at Charles' own banqueting hall in
Westminster, whose only reaction was a loud and mournful groan, was a foregone conclusion.
The Rump then proclaimed a republican form of government. First called the "Commonwealth
and Free-State," and later the "Protectorate," it lasted only eleven years.
СРСП-17
From Reformation to Restoration (cont'd.)
Republican Government in England (1649-1660)
Charles I sincerely believed that he died in the cause of law and the Church. His death may have
been thought of by Cromwell as a political necessity, but it created an atmosphere that was to
haunt his own efforts to build a new godly society. When his Parliament, the Rump, abolished
the monarchy, on the grounds that it was unnecessary, burdensome and dangerous, and then
meted out the same fate to the House of Lords, for being useless as well as dangerous, it was
destroying more than a thousand years of English history. Yet for many, even these measures
had not gone far enough; the so-called Levellers wanted more, wishing for biennial parliaments
with strictly limited powers, a vast increase in the electorate and no established church or
doctrine.
The demands of the Levellers put them way ahead of their time. Cromwell was determined to
crush them in a show of force. Determined to bring in an era of firm government, he quickly and
forcibly suppressed any revolts and attempts at challenging his authority. He also had to deal
with the Scots, seething with anger at the execution of their King whom he had promised to
preserve and defend by the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644.
Cromwell had come to Edinburgh to receive a hero's welcome, but the news of the
unprecedented execution of Charles, a few days later, sent a tidal wave of dismay over much of
Scotland. After all, the unfortunate man had been king of their country, too. And regicide was
still an act against God. Taking immediate action, Argyll continued the strange alliance of King
and Convenanter and had the 18 year-old Prince Charles proclaimed King at Edinburgh.
In 1650, Charles II duly arrived in Scotland to claim his Kingdom. Eventhough, in an opportune
"conversion," he had allowed himself to be crowned by the more powerful Presbyterian faction,
this was totally unacceptable to Oliver Cromwell, who had assumed the title of Lord Protector.
Cromwell invaded Scotland, defeated the Scots under General Leslie at Dunbar and marched on
Edinburgh. The Covenanters, no doubt trusting that God would preserve their cause, would not
admit defeat and on New Year's Day, 1651 they crowned Charles II at Scone and raised a
sizeable army to defend him. Mainly composed of Highlanders, it was utterly defeated by the
more disciplined, better trained Roundheads at Inverkeithing.
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Cromwell now occupied all of Scotland south of the Firth of Forth. He then departed to deal with
the Scottish army that had been looking for support in England, leaving General Monck in
charge. Cromwell caught up with the Scottish army at Worcester on September 3, 1651. He
destroyed it. A few days earlier, Monck had captured the Committee of the Estates (the remnant
of the Scottish Parliament and had occupied Dundee). The continent now became a refuge for
yet another Scottish monarch, as Charles II fled to France in the time-honored fashion of so
many Scots rulers. He was to return after nine years in exile. It is interesting to note that General
George Monck is on record as being "the first professional soldier of the unique school which
believes that the military arm should be subordinate to the civil" a doctrine followed by non
other than General Dwight D. Eisenhower during his presidency of the United States some three
hundred years later.
While the king in exile "went on his travels," as he put it, Cromwell was busy setting up an
efficient system of government in both kingdoms. He saw that a Treaty of Union in 1652 united
Scotland with England and made it part of the Commonwealth. At the beginning of his "reign,"
sanctioned by the Rump Parliament, he had dealt severely with insurrection in Ireland, where his
cruelty and butchery in reducing the towns of Drogheda and Wexford made his name so hated
that it is spoken in a dreaded whisper even today.
Cromwell was determined to prevent any of the Stuarts from gaining a foothold in Ireland.
Through his ruthless campaigning, he forced it to accept the authority of the rulers of England.
Following the precedent set by James l's land grants at the expense of the native Irish, many
more English landowners were able to take advantage of the confiscation and sale of sizable Irish
properties, a situation that was later to lead to the blight known as "Absentee Landlordism." One
result, however was that his military successes made it possible to integrate Scottish, Welsh,
English and Irish MP's into a truly British Parliament, a remarkable achievement that lasted until
the first quarter of the 20th century.
Under Cromwell, England was also able to strengthen its position abroad. As the signs of civil
strife became apparent, Charles l had married his daughter Mary, to William, Prince of Orange,
perhaps to show his commitment to Protestantism. Like the Scots, the Dutch people were
horrified at the news of the king's execution. To propose a union between the two republics, the
Rump Parliament sent envoys to Holland who were deliberately insulted and thus the
opportunity and the excuse was presented for English commercial interests to engage in a trade
war.
Consequently, the Rump passed a Navigation Act in 1654 designed to cripple Dutch trade. The
resulting war brought forth one of England's great military leaders, Admiral Blake, who
blockaded the Dutch ports and defeated and killed Admiral van Tromp in a sea battle before
peace came in 1654. War with Spain a year later resulted in the British capture of Jamaica and
the destruction of a large Spanish fleet at Tenerife.
In retrospect, Cromwell has been seen as an evil genius, at odds with the other impression that
saw him as a godly man, interested in the establishment of a lasting democracy that practiced
tolerance. He was certainly a man caught between opposing forces. He had gained his power
through the army, yet he wished to rule through a much less radical parliament. He truly found
himself "sitting on bayonets," as one historian has remarked. In 1653, unable to satisfy the
demands of both factions, in true monarchical fashion, he even dissolved Parliament, but after
the lack of progress of the interim "Barebones" Parliament, he resumed his power as head of the
government of a nation that consisted of England and Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
On 12 December, 1653, after he had refused an offer of the Crown, "Old Noll" Cromwell, virtual
dictator of England, received the title of Lord Protector. He instigated a period of government
remarkable for its religious tolerance to all except Roman Catholics, still regarded as enemies of
the realm. Under his protectorate, Jews were allowed back into England for the first time since
their expulsion under Edward I. Many Jewish families were to do much to support later English
governments financially. The Society of Friends or Quakers, began to flourish under the inspired
leadership of George Fox. Perhaps more remarkable was the permission granted to congregations
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to choose their own form of worship, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer was replaced by the
Directory of Worship.
Even these measures were not enough to satisfy everyone. In 1655, a Royalist uprising forced
Cromwell to divide England into eleven military districts to keep down insurrection and to
rigidly enforce the laws of the Commonwealth. Many of these leaders were responsible for the
so-called "blue laws" creating a land of joyless conformity, where not only drinking, swearing
and gambling became punishable offences, but in some districts, even going for a walk on
Sundays. The unpopularity of these puritanical justices, mostly army colonels, led to their
dismissal in 1657.
The same year saw Parliament nominate Cromwell's son Richard as his successor, an unfortunate
choice, for the young man, nicknamed "Tumbledown Dick," didnÍt have the experience nor the
desire to govern the nation. When he retired to his farm in the country, a period of great
confusion between the various political factions and indecisive government resulted in the
decision of General Monck to intervene. Always a Cavalier at heart "Old George" Monck
brought his army from Scotland to London, where he quickly assembled a parliament and invited
Charles ll to take over the reigns of the kingdom. The Republic of Great Britain and Ireland
came to an abrupt end.
Charles ll (1660-1685)
Though a London mob had thrown down a statue of Charles l outside the Royal Exchange and
placed the words "Exit Tyrannus" over the empty space, the same mob was to lustily cheer "God
Bless King Charles ll" at the arrival of General Monck's army. The people had never been happy
at the interregnum. The great diarist Samuel Pepys has adequately described the rejoicing when
the monarchy, "laid aside at the expense of so much blood, returned without the shedding of one
drop." Charles must have thought that the tumultuous welcome accorded him gave him carte
blanche to govern as he thought fit; it did not. There was still Parliament.
The king got off to a good start. England was tired of being without a king, such an integral part
of their history and a source of great national pride when things went well. Charles was crowned
in April 1660 and within the same year married Catherine, the daughter of the King of Portugal,
an act, nevertheless, which did nothing to diminish his reputation as a philanderer. Sadly enough,
though he sired at least fourteen illegitimate children, but he was not able to produce a legitimate
heir. A cynic in morals and a pragmatist in politics, he was shrewd enough to change his beliefs
when he saw an advantage. In his earlier attempts at winning the throne, he had courted the Scots
Presbyterians, but in later life, he reverted to his Catholic preferences.
Charles could not, of course, claim to rule by divine right. That era in English history had gone
forever. The Crown could not enforce taxes without the consent of Parliament, nor could it
arbitrarily arrest M.P.'s as Charles l had attempted. The two houses of Parliament, Lords and
Commons were restored, as was the Church of England and the bishoprics. Many of those who
had plotted against Charles l, known as "regicides" were executed, but there was no orgy of
revenge and many prominent anti-Royalists, such as the poet John Milton, were allowed to
escape punishment. The restoration of the supremacy of the Anglican Church, however, meant
the upswelling of resistance from those outside its embrace.
Protestants were grouped together under many names. There were Baptists, Congregationalists
and Quakers, all of who resisted strenuous efforts to get them to toe the line by conforming to the
Act of Uniformity of 1662. Action against them came in the form of the Clarendon Code, a
collection of different restrictive measures completed during 1664-5, that cut off the dissenters
from professional advancement in all the professions, except business. Perhaps this may have led
to the close alliance of Dissent and the world of Business that so characterized later England and
has been seen as the foundation for its commercial success. In any case, it only strengthened the
desire of the new and various Protestant sects to worship in the way they pleased.
Unlicensed preachers became a thorn in the side of government who regarded them as something
akin to traitors. In 1660, John Bunyan, who preached, as he stated so emphatically, by invitation
of God, and not of any bishop, went to prison for twelve years. The result was first, "Grace
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Abounding" and then "Pilgrim's Progress" completed in 1675. The pious, humble Quakers were
particularly singled out for ridicule and harsh treatment. But the worst fears, and most severe
recriminations were reserved for the Catholics.
During the period known as Carolingian England, after Charles had made his triumphant return
from the Continent, it seems that there was no end to the anti-papal processions in London, the
burning of the pope and cardinals in effigy, the hunting down of Catholic priests, the closing of
their schools and search for their secret meeting places. Great Catholic families had been
particularly loyal to Charles l; they had become anathema during the inter-regnum, and there was
little that Charles II could do to restore their former dignity and favor. Catholic priests went into
hiding, in constant peril of death or were forced to fall to the Continent.
After 1668, Charles began to turn more and more toward the Catholic religion. He concluded
treaties with Louis XIV of France and agreed to reconcile himself with the "Church of Rome." In
1672, he issued a Declaration of Indulgence allowing freedom of religion for Catholics as well as
non-conformists (Dissenters). He then joined the French king in a war against the Dutch, who
flooded their lands successfully and resisted invasion. The failure caused a return of English
resentment of Catholics and the passing of the Test Act of 1673 compelling public office holders
to take the sacrament of the Church of England.
In 1678, when Protestant Clergyman Titus Oates, known as an habitual liar, heard rumors of the
possible conversion of England to Catholicism by an invasion of French troops, he whipped up
public feeling to frenzied heights by graphically embellishing the false tale. (Note: in World War
II, the author as a small boy remembers the rumors being put about of an invasion of German
paratroopers who had, it was said, already landed in Scotland: it was probably started when Nazi
leader Hess parachuted into Scotland to give himself up to British authorities). Panic swept the
land.
In the orgy created by rumors of plots to kill Charles and burn down Parliament, Catholics were
hunted down and killed, and the legitimate heir, James Duke of York, was excluded from the
throne by Parliament because he was a Catholic. Those who supported him were called "Tories"
after Catholic outlaws in Ireland. Those who opposed James were the "Whigs" after
Whiggamores, fiercely Protestant Scottish drovers. The Whigs supported the claim of The
Protestant Duke of Monmouth, one of Charles' illegitimate sons. Another civil war seemed
imminent before anti-Catholic feelings managed to die down in the absence of the "threatened"
invasion. Yet even then, Charles continued his secret intrigues with the King of France.
Fortunately for the profligate, but Machiavellian English King, when a Whig plot to murder him
and James, he had a reason to execute his opponents. Popular opinion then allowed him to bring
back James to England where he regained his earlier position as Lord High Admiral. Charles was
then able to live out the rest of his reign in peace mainly free from the political and religious
struggles that had occupied so much of his reign.
These struggles, mostly involving the degree to which Protestantism had taken hold in Britain,
had been particularly manifest in England's relations with Scotland. Alas, like his father, the new
king had little interest in Scotland, preferring to govern it through a Privy Council situated in
Edinburgh and a Secretary at London. Despite his early support by the Scots Presbyterians, he
considered Presbytery as "not a religion for gentlemen." It is a constant source of astonishment to
the modern reader how little Charles knew about how deep the roots of Presbyterianism had been
planted in Scotland and how strongly the Covenanters would fight all attempts to return Scotland
to episcopacy. His years in exile had taught him very little.
As King of Scotland, Charles had signed two Covenants in 1649 merely to secure his own
coronation. When he restored James VI's method of choosing the Committee of Articles, he had
the intention, not only of strengthening his position in relation to Parliament, but also of bringing
back the bishops and restoring the system of patronage that chose ministers. All ministers chosen
since 1649 were required to resign and to reapply for their posts from the bishops and lairds. One
third of all Scottish ministers refused and held services in defiance of the law. Troops were sent
to enforce the regulations but made the Calvinist Covenanters even more eager to serve God in
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their own way. In 1679, claiming to be obeying a command from on high, they murdered
Archbishop Sharp.
The government decided to intervene to bring the rebels to heel. An army was sent to deal with
them under the command of James, Duke of Monmouth. He defeated the Covenanters at
Bothwell Brig and the survivors were dealt with severely. The reaction and counter-reactions
that followed gave the period of the 1680's the title of "The Killing Time." The troubles
continued when Charles died in 1685 to be succeeded by his brother James VIl (James ll of
England) an openly-avowed Catholic who was welcomed in the Highlands, ever true to the
legitimate monarch. And thus the seeds were sown for the Jacobite opposition that blossomed
under the next king, the Dutchman, William of Orange.
Before the accession of James II, however, we have to mention the three great disasters that
befell the England of Charles: plague, fire and war, all of which took place in three consecutive
years, and all of which were recorded in graphic detail by diarist Pepys. The great outbreak of
plague began in 1665, bringing London to a standstill and causing panic at the numbers of dead
and the lack of any knowledge as to how to deal with the terrible scourge. Those who could
afford to, simply packed up and went to live in the country.
The Great Fire of London, catastrophic as it was to the city, may have helped destroy the
dwelling places of the brown rat, the carrier of the deadly fleas and thus brought the plague to an
end. Though it destroyed the massive St. Paul's cathedral, it gave a chance for architects such as
Christopher Wren to rebuild, transforming the old, unhealthy medieval, infested warrens into a
city worthy of being a nation's capital, with fine, wide streets, memorable public buildings and
above all, its magnificent new churches, including the present St. Paul's.
The third catastrophe was the continuation of the war against Holland. This time, with the Royal
Navy mutinous over poor pay and atrocious conditions aboard its ships, the Dutch navy was able
to sail with impunity into the Medway at the mouth of the Thames and burn many of the English
ships moored at idle anchor. After the triumphs of Admiral Blake in the First Dutch War (16524), the Second Dutch War (1665-7) was a national disgrace.
Charles II died in February 1685 of a heart attack no doubt brought on by a life style that today'
medical men (and religious leaders) would style nothing less than debauched. Of his reign, and
that of his successor, more than one historian has seen all the political struggles, culminating in
the Revolution of 1688 and the triumph of Parliament over the Crown, as springing partly from
their attempts to grant to Catholics a greater degree of tolerance than would be countenanced by
their other English subjects. They came to a head during the reign of James II.
James ll (1685-1688)
James was yet another of those who have only themselves to blame for their downfall. His reign
lasted only three years. He too, had learned nothing from his predecessors, for his attempts to reintroduce Catholicism into a country that had become a bastion of Protestantism meant with
disaster far worse than any plague or fire or minor skirmishes on the Continent. Unlike Charles
II, who could modify his beliefs to suit the occasion and ride the swells of political change,
James could not; his morality, some say his high-handedness, prevented him. In his own words,
he admitted that had he kept his religion private, he could have been one of the most powerful
kings ever to reign in England, but he would think of nothing "but the propagation of the
Catholic religion."
Things went well at first. He was able to get Parliament to grant him adequate finances. He
recognized the Church of England as the established church and defeated a rebellion led by
James, the Duke of Monmouth who had foolishly landed on the southern coast of England and
declared himself king. Though many of the people of the southwest came to his support,
Monmouth's rag-tag army was defeated at Sedgemoor and soon came to suffer the reprisals
handed out by the infamous "Bloody " Judge Jeffries who had hundreds executed and hundreds
more transported overseas as convicts, mainly to the New World.
King James was misled by his early success. He began to implement policies that not only gave
religious toleration to nonconformists, but also, and especially to, Catholics. Enlightened as this
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policy seems to us, James had chosen the wrong time and the wrong country. By replacing
Protestants as heads of universities, military leaders and in important offices of state, the king
dug his own grave. He ignored all Protestant pleas for concessions. One of the last straws was his
1687 Declaration of Indulgence which aimed at complete religious toleration. This too, was an
act far ahead of its time; it only furthered the resentment of, and increased the fears of, the
nation's Protestant majority. Non conformists and Anglicans reformed their alliance against the
religious policies of the king. He had learned nothing from Charles II, who had done his best to
keep this alliance alive; thus ensuring that his last years were peaceful ones.
James, on the other hand, was too anxious to foment change; he did not take into account the
anti-Catholic sentiments of much of the British nation; constant wars with continental powers,
i.e. Catholic, had built a strong, nationalistic British (and Protestant) state. James' plans for equal
civil and religious rights for Catholics were out of the question; his efforts to win widespread
support for his policies were totally unsuccessful.
On the continent, the Protestant ruler, the Dutch King William III of Orange was engaged in a
duel with the French King Louis XIV for military success and diplomatic influence in Western
Europe. Charles II of England had fought against the Dutch in a series of skirmishes for
commercial hegemony, but a rapprochement followed the marriage of William and his first
cousin Mary, James's eldest daughter in 1677. William made his decision to intervene in England
in early 1688, hoping to be seen as a liberator, not as a conqueror; but his first invasion attempt
in mid-October was easily defeated, mainly by the English weather which destroyed most of his
ships and supplies.
Yet it was precisely this weather, and the strong northeasterly wind, that later prevented the
British fleet from intercepting the Dutch armies of William landing at Brixham on 5 November,
1688. King James, despite having numerical strength in soldiers was forced on the defensive. His
weak resolve, poor judgment, ill health and probably poor advice, caused him to retreat to
London instead of attacking William's vulnerable army.
In the meantime, a series of provincial uprisings did nothing to bolster the morale of James'
forces; Derby, Nottingham, York, Hull and Durham declared for William whose army marched
towards London. Showing a complete failure of nerve, James fled to France in mid-December;
his forces, twice the size of those of William, rapidly disintegrated. It was widely believed that
William allowed James to escape, not wishing to make the King another English martyr. In what
historians have called the "Glorious Revolution" William and Mary, in a joint monarchy, became
rulers of Britain. James II and his baby son were debarred from the succession, as were all
Catholics.
СРСП-18
The Age of Empire
Preparation for Empire Building: The Growth of the Commons
In 1690 John Locke published his highly influential "Two Treatises of Civil Government;" its
theory of limited monarchy had vast appeal to the majority of Englishmen, but especially to
Parliament, always anxious to increase its own powers and give special favors to its members.
According to Locke, "The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but
that established by consent in the commonwealth, nor under the domination of any will, or
restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it."
Prior to the great electoral reforms of the later 19th century, the legislative in England was
restricted to a very limited class. But it was a powerful class indeed that came to dominate the
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House of Commons, and it was the House of Commons that made the Empire, for it was an
empire based on trade. While England's great rival, the kingdom of Spain may have had mixed
motives in its overseas conquests, the lure of gold perhaps as equally important as the saving of
souls, those who governed Britain did not disguise their motives.
The power of the Commons, and its control by the business and trade oriented middle-class,
aided and abetted by a rapidly growing stratum of lawyers, had been building steadily; it looked
for opportunities in whatever part of the world they could be found (and exploited). They were
aided by the constitutional crisis that occurred when James II fled to France in 1688.
A Convention Parliament offered the throne to William and Mary (elder daughter of James II) as
joint sovereigns; hereditary succession was replaced by parliamentary succession. A Bill of
Rights was drawn up that guaranteed free speech, free elections and frequent meetings of
Parliament, the consent of which was made necessary to raise taxes, keep a standing army and
proscribe ecclesiastical commissions or courts, and royally suspend and dispense power. In short,
the Bill re-affirmed the will of the English people (or at least of those who represented them in
Parliament) against the arbitrary powers of the monarchy.
One of the most important milestones in English law had already taken place. The "Habeas
Corpus Act" of 1679 had obliged judges to issue upon request a writ of habeas corpus directing a
gaoler (jailer) to produce the body of any prisoner and to show cause for his imprisonment. The
Act went on to state that a prisoner should be indicted in the first term of his commitment, be
tried no later than the second term and once set free by order of the court, should not be
imprisoned again for the same offense. Thus at a single stroke, hundreds of years of abuse of the
prisoner by the authorities, often capricious and vengeful, came to an end. The Act remains an
integral part of the Commonwealth's legal system today and has been widely copied in many
other countries including the United States.
Also of considerable interest and lasting importance was the creation of a fixed Civil List for
both the Crown's household and administrative expenditures, a novelty which the monarchs may
have chafed at ever since, but which was made necessary to keep their expenditures under
parliamentary control. Parliament had come a long way since the days of Henry VII. It is worth
while to take a brief look at what had been taking place in the winning of the initiative by the
House of Commons.
In the reign of Henry VIII Parliament had become increasingly important in the scheme of
government for it gave confirmation and authority to the royal wishes when needed. If the King
wished to go slow on his promises of treaties, it gave him a convenient way of retreat; in the
struggle with foreign and domestic interests, it strengthened his hands. Much more than a
formality of government and a mere income-generating body, Parliament began to be recognized
as the voice of public opinion, a voice that the Tudors may not always have liked, but one which
they wisely never wholly failed to heed.
The Tudors had encountered some opposition from the Commons, but during most
Parliamentary sessions it had not been enough to cause any great anxiety to the Crown or the
Council. There were simply too many members in the Lower House who regarded opposition to
the Crown as disloyal. In any case, Henry VIII was ruthless in dealing with those who opposed
him. Yet the Members in Commons could become vociferous, especially when the Crown asked
for money. Privileges began to be exchanged for promises of ready cash: once granted, it was
hard for future monarchs to refuse them.
The Upper House, as expected, was a firm ally of the Council. The leaders of the House of Lords
were usually landed magnates who had often helped the Council in formulating Crown policy.
The Lords seldom resisted the wishes of the Council, and much legislation was put first through
the Upper House; then brought to the Commons, who dutifully followed along, for their seats
often depended upon the support of local magnates. It was during the troublesome reign of Mary
Tudor that the Commons became more contentious. Her determination to reverse the trend of
events in religion brought her into conflict with her Parliaments, where something like a
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Protestant Party began to form to voice its opposition. Members began to speak out, and Mary
had to go out of her way to dragoon them into acquiescence with her unpopular policies.
In Elizabeth's long reign, the House of Commons grew in leadership, though the whip hand
remained firmly in the hands of the Queen and Council. It was in matters where the Queen
expressed no opinion that the House was subtly, but surely, able to gain in power. The Puritan
element in Parliament began to exert more and more influence; it was especially alarmed at
Elizabeth's middle-of-the road religious policies. For the time being, however, under the strong
hand of the Privy Council, and especially during the time of the Cecils, the Commons remained
quiet, duly supportive of Royal legislation, kept firmly in control by the carefully groomed
Speaker. Yet even his power had declined by the end of Elizabeth's reign with the dramatic
increase in the use of the committee system.
By the time of the early Stuarts, essential changes had taken place in the growth of the English
Constitution, changes in the day to day business and in the way of doing things. Between the
time of Elizabeth I and the Long Parliament of Charles I, a great change had taken place in the
relation of the Royal Council to the Commons. Almost unnoticed, Privy Councillors had ceased
to guide the Lower House, in which there came into power a group of leaders who had no
official connection with the government. It was this leadership that established the real initiative
in legislation. The Commons had become a dominant force in government; its dynamic, forceful
leaders had made the institution almost unrecognizable from the old, acquiescent body that had
been afraid to cross the Tudors.
Parliament had further grown in strength when James I failed to keep a sufficient number of his
own men in the Commons, which became increasingly vociferous in expressing its grievances.
James himself was seen as a meddler; unlike Elizabeth, he was not content with staying in the
background, and his constant interference meant that his words lost their weight, and royal
prerogative began to be sneered at openly. Resentment led to opposition. The King's penchant
for elevating his supporters to the House of Lords also left him with inexperienced, untried
members to speak for him in the Commons.
The leadership exercised by Elizabeth's able Councillors was wholly absent during James' reign.
The Commons could only benefit from the hiatus; its members were no longer subservient to the
Royal Will; many were lawyers who brought new initiatives along with their legal skills into the
committee system. Their presence ensured that the Commons no longer served as a recruiting
ground for the service of the Crown, but was seen as a dignified profession for wealthy and
powerful country gentlemen. Their allegiance was primarily to common law, not to the whims of
their monarch.
A new interest in precedent also searched for ways to establish the privileges, rights and powers
of the Commons on a firm basis, rapidly changing it from a mere ratifying body to one that
formulated and passed laws. The Commons eventually showed that it not only could decide who
could sit on the throne of England, it could even dispense with the monarchy altogether. It also
had to deal with Scotland.
The Jacobites in Scotland and Ireland
It was all-too-soon apparent that William's success in England did nothing to ensure the
compliance of Scotland and Ireland. The cause of the exiled Stuarts became known as
Jacobitism, from the Latin for James, Jacobus. Though King James and his supporters controlled
parts of Britain including most of Ireland, they failed miserably in their cause. In a series of
strategically-sound campaigns, William succeeded in driving them from their bases in both
Ireland and Scotland, thus forcing them to become reliant on foreign support. The campaigns
against William's rule in overwhelmingly-Catholic Ireland began the period of close cooperation
of that country with France, both military and political. It continued right up the '45 rebellion.
The first battle against the new King William of England was fought in Scotland. In July, 1689,
at Killiecrankie, the most active of James' supporters, Viscount Dundee, defeated a much larger
royal army led by General Mackay. "Bonnie Dundee" was killed in the battle, but the
Highlanders' success led the hitherto hesitant clans to flock to James' standard. It was a success
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that gave them false hopes; without Dundee in command, they were unable to exploit their initial
victory.
The decisive battles involving the Jacobite cause were not fought in Scotland, but in Ireland,
more accessible to French naval power, and thus to troops and supplies. In a desperate attempt to
regain his throne, James II left France for Ireland in March 1689. His armies soon won most of
the country, but a prolonged resistance was put up by the people of Derry, where the Protestant
apprentice boys had slammed the city gates shut against the Catholic army. Starving Derry
(Londonderry) was eventually relieved by an English fleet in July 1689, a day still celebrated
with much pomp and pageantry in Northern Ireland. In August, mainly as a consequence of the
resistance of Derry and Enniskillen, William's army, mostly Danish and Dutch mercenaries,
occupied Belfast.
In June 1690 William marched on Dublin. His way was blocked by the Jacobite forces on the
banks of the River Boyne, which became the site of the battle so vividly remembered and
celebrated by Ulster's Protestant majority. James' outnumbered forces were cast aside. Once
more showing a failure of nerve, in time-honored fashion for a Scottish ruler, he fled to France,
and William easily took Dublin. Other successes were enjoyed by John Churchill, Earl of
Marlborough, aided by the Dutch General Ginkel with Hugh Mackay as his second-in-command.
At Limerick, what was left of the Jacobite cause suffered another catastrophic defeat; all their
forces in Ireland consequently surrendered, with about 11,000 Irishmen, the so-called Wild
Geese, going to France to continue the fight for James.
James had not given up hope of regaining his kingdom. He still enjoyed the strong support of
Louis XIV, and in June 1690, his hopes were raised when a large French naval force managed to
defeat an Anglo-Dutch fleet. As so often in the past, however, the Jacobite victory was not
followed up. French control of the Channel was not exploited and the initiative was soon lost.
When Louis finally decided to invade England in May 1692, it was too late; his fleet was sent
packing. One result of the hostilities was entirely unexpected but had an enormous result on
subsequent world history.
In 1694, the costs of the war led to the formation of the Bank of England, a Whig joint-stock
company that raised funds from the public and loaned it to the government in exchange for the
right to issue bank notes and to discount bills. The loan did not have to be repaid as long as the
interest was raised by imports duties. Thus a funded national debt came into being. The method
of borrowing money at interest, instead of taking it by taxation for nothing was established as a
normal practice. It took a while to catch on in other countries, but catch on it did, as soon as
respective governments saw the advantages. The foundation of a society to write marine
insurance formed by merchants and sea captains at Lloyd's Coffee House in 1688 was also of
enormous importance; the practice of underwriting enormous expenditures in overseas ventures
and shipping, dates from this time.
Another revolutionary idea was the granting of monopolies in trade by Parliament, and not by
the time-honored system of royal dispensation to favorite courtiers. The 1698 Parliament showed
its strength by announcing that such grants could no longer be granted as a general rule by royal
charter but only though an act of Parliament. The new East India Company came about as one of
the first results of these acts, seen by many as the greatest event in the organization of British
foreign trade. This company, together with the newly-formed Bank of England, showed only too
well the growing power of the British traders and financiers over the state government.
For many, the resolution of May 26, 1698 was as important as the "Magna Carta" of 1215, for it
gave the granting of powers and privileges for carrying on the East India trade to Parliament.
And if the trading classes could control Parliament, they could make their own terms, which is
precisely what happened over and over again in subsequent British history. It became one of the
ever-increasing problems for the country's government: the interference of trade with legislation
and administration was to become an inevitable part of the future. Yet it was the desire for trade
and overseas markets that led to the expansion of the Empire.
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On the Continent, French King Louis, having enough of the war against the stubborn Dutch and
their allies, made peace at Rijswijk in 1697, recognizing William as King of England and his
sister-in-law Anne as heiress presumptive. A period of peace between France and England,
however, came to an end with Louis's recognition of the prince born in 1688 as the future King
James III, an act regarded by historian Arthur Bryant as one of "megalomaniac folly." Prospects
for the Jacobites, however, were not helped by the War of the Spanish Succession which tied up
Catholic forces in the Netherlands and forced France to withdraw to its own borders.
As important as William's victories were in Scotland and Ireland, he was more concerned with
the fate of the Spanish Netherlands that looked likely to fall to France upon the death of the
childless Charles II of Spain. After Louis agreed that his grandson Phillip V would rule the
Spanish Empire, William formed his Grand Alliance against France in 1701. We have to
remember that William's main purpose in taking on the throne of England was to utilize its
resources and military forces to defend his beloved Netherlands against the French King. When
William died in 1702 after falling from his horse (young Queen Mary had died of small pox in
1694), Princess Anne succeeded him; the war in France continued.
Queen Anne (1702-14) The Foundations of Empire
It was evident during the reign of dull, gouty Anne that Britain was also fast becoming a nation
thoroughly Protestant, though the inevitable differences in worship continued. Anne was an
Anglican, a member of the Established Church of England. King James had been forced to make
a number of concessions to the Nonconformists (or Dissenters) in order to win political support.
Though the times were not yet ripe for complete religious toleration, the Toleration Act of 1689
had broken the monopoly of English Protestantism hitherto enjoyed by the Established Church.
The rise of the Dissenters and the spread of Unitarianism accompanied the so-called Scientific
Revolution in England associated with the upsetting (to Churchmen) discoveries of such men as
Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle. The Established Church no longer played a major role in
national politics. The accession of William, a Dutch Calvinist, had been instrumental in helping
sever that special relationship long enjoyed between Church and Crown.
Though the quarrels within and without the Church continued, in an age noted for the prolific
rise in pamphleteering and electioneering chicanery, the time of Daniel Defoe and Dean Swift
and the intense and bitter political between Whigs and Tories, it was the war with France that
dominated Queen Anne's reign. William's accession had meant that the island nation of England
had become inextricably part of the Continent. The war brought forth one of England's great
military leaders, John Churchill, the husband of Queen Anne's close friend Sarah.
Churchill succeeded King William as leader of the English and Dutch forces in the Grand
Alliance. Under his leadership as the Duke of Marlborough, England became the leading military
power in Europe for the first time since the Hundred Years' War. Though the Dutch feared an
invasion by France, Marlborough went ahead and attacked the French army at Blenheim, a name
that is remembered in England as one of the greatest victories in its long history.
The annihilation of the French army at Blenheim was followed by the English capture of
Gibralter in 1704; another smashing victory at Ramillies was then followed by additional
successes at Oudenarde and Malplaquet. A grateful nation built Blenheim Palace for the Duke (a
sumptuous residence in which Winston Churchill, a direct descendant of John Churchill, was
born in 1874). The victorious Wellington was satirized by Scot John Arbuthnot in his "The
History of John Bull" (1712) that introduced the name John Bull as a symbol of England.
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СРСП-19
The Age of Empire, continued
England and the New World: An Expanding Empire
In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht firmly established England's commercial and colonial supremacy,
for it gave her new possessions in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Minorca as well as Gibralter
and the sole right to supply slaves to Spanish colonies. Britain's interests in the New World had
begun early. An indication of its eventual triumph in Virginia had been the founding of the
College of William and Mary in 1693.
Success in colonizing North America had not come without its terrible costs, yet in retrospect it
seemed extremely rapid. It is a sobering fact that the first voyage of Christopher Columbus took
place only 20 years after Scotland had finally acquired the Orkneys and Shetlands from Norway.
Columbus had visited England in 1477 to try to obtain backing for a voyage to discover a new
route to the Indies but had been turned down (his brother Bartholomew was also rejected by the
English Court in 1485). Yet only five years after Columbus had landed in the Bahamas, John
Cabot reached Labrador aboard the Matthew. His 35 day voyage marks the beginning of British
domination of North America.
In 1496, John and Sebastian Cabot, sailing from Bristol, took their little fleet along the coasts of
what were later called Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Some English scholars maintain that the
name America comes from Richard Amerik, a Bristol merchant and Customs officer, who helped
finance the Cabot voyages. The elder Cabot recorded the vast fishing grounds later known as the
Grand Banks.
Interest in finding new lands may have been initiated by the publication of "Utopia" by Thomas
More in 1515, that described the benefits of a new land. It must certainly have been influenced
by the Spanish discoveries of maize, tobacco and the potato, all of which they introduced in
Europe, along with oranges from the Orient. Another deciding factor was the planting of the
French flag in the Gaspe Peninsular, Canada and on lands along the St. Lawrence River, by
Jacques Cartier in 1534. Much of Britain's investment in North America may have been simply
to prevent French influence.
Further interest in the New World was surely sparked by the explorations of Franciscan
missionary de Niza who returned to Spain in 1539 with glowing accounts of the "seven cities of
Cibola." One year later, Dutchman Jo Greenlander discovered that early settlers had been in what
was later named Greenland. Hernando de Soto landed at Tampa Bay and Coronado explored the
American southwest. In 1541 Pizarro completed his conquest of Peru and de Soto discovered the
Mississippi. Perhaps the most consequential discovery of the century was that of the silver mine
at Potosi by the Spanish in 1545 that fueled the commercial activity of Europe during the
following century.
The efforts of Spain and Portugal in the same area also spurred further English interest in the
Americas. It was especially so since the writings of Welshman John Dee had claimed the New
World for Elizabeth I as Queen of an Atlantic Empire, and successor to Madoc, a Welsh prince
purported to have landed in what later became known as Mobile Bay in the 12th century and
whose followers, it was claimed, intermingled with the Mandans in the upper Mississippi Valley.
England's own era of exploration, initiated by the Cabots, was expanded by the journeys of Hugh
Willoughby to seek a Northeast Passage to China and the spice trade. He reached Moscow by
way of the White Sea and Archangel in 1553. As a result, the Muscovy Company was founded
by Richard Chancellor to trade with Russia in 1555. One year later, in what many non-smokers
now consider "a year of infamy," tobacco seeds reached Europe, brought from Brazil by a
Franciscan monk.
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In 1561, Jean Nicot (who gave his name to nicotine) sent seeds and powdered leaves of the
tobacco plant to France. Such imports to Europe seized the imagination of John Hawkins who
began his career of high-jacking Portuguese and Spanish ships in 1562. Hawkins' exploits, along
with similar exploits of his fellow mariners, led to England's entering the Slave Trade despite
Queen Elizabeth's dramatic speech against it (she later took shares in his company and even lent
him a ship).
Tobacco found its way to England when John Hawkins brought some home from Florida in
1565. Three years later, David Ingram explored from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and reported
finding vines with grapes as large as a man's thumbs. A great boost to exploration then came
from the publication, in 1569, of the Flemish geographer Mercator's projection map of the world
which represented the meridians of longitude by equally spaced parallel lines and which greatly
increased the accuracy of navigational maps. English mariner Francis Drake then undertook his
daring voyage of 1572 to capture the Spanish treasure fleet returning from Peru, a feat surpassed
by his even greater haul one year later.
English exploration of North America continued in 1576 when Martin Frobisher discovered
Baffin's Land and Frobisher's Bay on his search for a Northwest Passage to China. Two years
later Queen Elizabeth gave a patent to Sir Humphrey Gilbert to "inhabit and possess at his choice
all remote and heathen lands not in the actual possession of any Christian prince." The search for
the famed Northwest Passage continued unabated.
In 1580, Drake arrived back in Plymouth having circumnavigated the globe in the Pelican,
renamed the Golden Hinde after the gallant ship had passed through the Straits of Magellan.
Drake was then knighted by the Queen after capturing the richest prize ever taken at sea. Gilbert
then tried unsuccessfully to create the first English settlement in the New World at
Newfoundland. The Virginia colony was established in 1584 at Roanoke by Sir Walter Raleigh.
One year later, Chesapeake Bay was discovered by Ralph Lane and Davis Strait by John Davis.
In 1585, the first oriental spice to be grown in the New World, Jamaican ginger, arrived in
Europe. In 1586, Sir Richard Cavendish became the third man to circumnavigate the globe when
his ship the Desire reached England after a voyage of over two years. During the same year,
Raleigh planted potatoes on his estate near Cork, Ireland; and Virginia Dare was born on
Roanoke Island, the first English child to be born in North America.
In 1594, after deaths from scurvy in the Royal Navy had become epidemic, Sir Richard Hawkins
recommended orange and lemon juice as antiscorbutics. It eventually became standard practice
in the Royal Navy to add citrus juice to the diet (conquest of scurvy played a big part in
England's later domination of the seas). When the Portuguese closed its spice market in Lisbon
to Dutch and English traders, the Dutch East India Company was created to obtain spices
directly from the Orient.
English exploration of the New World continued, receiving a bonus when Richard Hakluyt
produced a recognizable map in 1599. In 1600, the Honourable East India Company was
chartered to make annual voyages to the Indies and to challenge Dutch control of the spice trade.
The smoking of tobacco became fashionable in London this year. When the first spice fleet
leaving for the Orient arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, James Lancaster dosed his sailors with
lemon juice to make them the only crew in the entire fleet not decimated by scurvy. Coffee
joined tobacco as a London fad.
In 1602, English sailor Bartholomew Gosnold explored what was later to be called "New
England." He brought sassafras back, but left smallpox behind to decimate many of the native
peoples, mistakenly called "Indians." After James I had made peace with Spain in 1604, he redirected England's efforts at colonizing North America, and the Plymouth and London
Companies sent ships and colonists. Jamestown, Virginia was founded in 1607. During the same
year, Henry Hudson sought a route to China and sailed round the Eastern Shore of Greenland to
reach Spitzbergen. In 1610, Hudson's ship Discovery reached the strait later to be known as
Hudson Bay, Canada.
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In 1612, John Smith published his "Map of Virginia" describing the colony, which eventually
managed to produce an extremely profitable export commodity in tobacco. In 1614, Smith also
explored the New England coast and renamed a native village, calling it Plymouth. Next, when
he ventured to a latitude of over 77 degrees north to seek the Northwest Passage, William Baffin
sailed farther north than any other explorer for the next 236 years. In 1616, John Smith published
his "Description of New England", providing a further impetus to would-be settlers.
In 1618, the first legislative body in the New World convened at Jamestown, the Virginia House
of Burgesses. This was also a year in which small pox ravaged the native population of the
English North American colonies, including Chief Powhatan. One year later, the first black
slaves arrived in Virginia, and the first American day of Thanksgiving was celebrated on the
English ship Margaret at the mouth of the James River.
In 1620, the Mayflower arrived off Cape Cod with 100 Pilgrims and two children born at sea.
The Plymouth Colony celebrated its first Thanksgiving Day, but the colonists did not entertain
their Indian guests at the dinner until the following year. In 1628 John Endicott arrived as the
first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Thousands more English settlers went to the
American colonies during the reign of Charles l. In 1632, Maryland received its charter by a
grant from King Charles to Cecil Calvert. Four years later, Providence was founded as a Rhode
Island settlement by Roger Williams, and Harvard College came into existence.
In 1639 the first Smithfield hams arrived in England from Virginia, now starting to thrive, and
the following year, Massachusetts Bay Colony began to export codfish. In the West Indies, sugar
cane was grown for profit, supplying Britain with a substitute for honey, now rare after the
dissolution of the monasteries, which had produced most of British honey for centuries. The
manufacture of Rum from sugar cane was established in Barbados. Britain began to concentrate
on the West Indies and the Americas, leaving the East Indies to the Dutch, but competing with
France (and to some extent the Dutch) for North America.
In 1649, after the defeat of the armies of King Charles l, many Royalists emigrated to Virginia.
In 1655, Admiral Penn captured Jamaica from the Spanish. In 1664, Nieuw Amsterdam was
renamed New York after its capture from the Dutch. A year later, the New Jersey Colony was
founded by English colonists. The Treaty of Westminster of 1674 returned New York and
Delaware to England, freeing the English to expand their trade and grow prosperous on it.
In 1681, Pennsylvania had its beginning in the land grant given to Admiral Penn's son, the
Quaker William, who wished to call it New Wales, but settled for the Welsh word for head (Pen)
and the Latin for woods (Sylvania). The Frame of Government for the new colony contained an
explicit clause that permitted amendments, an innovation that made it a self-adjusting
constitution, as the US Constitution itself later came to be.
In a move that has been ignored by many historians, England readmitted Roman Catholics to the
army in 1686, thus allowing many thousands of Irish peasants and Scots Highlanders to join the
forces that would be needed to expand and control England's ever-growing empire. In 1696,
William Dampier published his general survey of the Pacific, "Voyage Round the World." One
year later, Parliament opened the slave trade to British merchants who began their triangular
trade from taking rum from New England to Africa, slaves to the Caribbean and sugar and
molasses to New England. In 1698, Dampier sailed on his Pacific expedition to explore the West
Coast of Australia.
Further emigration from England to the American Colonies was encouraged during Queen
Anne's reign by the 1702 publication of Cotton Mather's "Magnalia Christi Americana," a history
of New England designed to show that God was at work in the colonies. A French-Indian attack
on Deerfield, Massachusetts, however, was a precursor of the later war to come. Queen Anne, of
a most "ordinary" character, and the last monarch of the ill-fortuned House of Stuart, died in
1714. She was succeeded by Hanover's Prince George Louis, a great-grandson of James I.
During her reign, developments had taken place in England that were to shortly make it the
world's leading industrial power. But first came political union with Scotland.
The Act of Union with Scotland: May 1, 1707
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James II's youngest daughter Anne, whose last surviving child, Princess Anne did not survive;
thus there was no direct successor to the throne. London was afraid that unless a formal, political
union with Scotland was firmly in place, as distinct from the existing dynastic union (which had
been established with the accession of the Stuart James VI of Scotland as James I of England in
1603), the country might choose James Edward Stuart, Anne's exiled Catholic half-brother.
The English Parliament passed the Act of Settlement in 1701 to ensure that Anne's heir was to be
the Electress Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James l. Consequently, when William died in
1702, he was succeeded by Queen Anne, a true daughter of the last legitimate monarch, James II.
On William's deathbed he had recommended union with Scotland. In 1703, the Scottish
Parliament passed the Act of Security that provided for a Protestant Stuart succession upon
Anne's death, unless the Scottish government was freed from "English or any foreign influence."
The English Parliament responded with an Alien's Act that prohibited all Scottish imports to
England unless the Scots accepted the Hanoverian succession. When union was strongly urged
by Lord Godolphin, the Scots reluctantly acquiesced in order to gain the advantage of free trade
with the new British common market; the Act of Union merely cemented what had been a
growing interdependence between the two countries. Union with Scotland became official on
May 1, 1707 by act of Parliament. There were advantages for both countries in the Union, seen
in retrospect as an act of policy, not of affection.
Sometimes overlooked while discussing the reasons for Scotland's agreeing to the union is the
terrible beating taken by that unfortunate nation in the Darien affair. The Scottish Parliament's
grandiose scheme to finance a rival to the East India Company and its attempt to found a colony
on the isthmus of Darien, or Panama, met with hostility from the English Parliament. Disease
and Spanish interference brought a quick and sad end to the scheme, in which practically the
whole Scottish nation had shown interest. Much of the blame was cast upon "Dutch William"
and his English advisors, but Scottish mercantile interests were forced by the experience to find a
workable solution. Perhaps it would be better, they reasoned, to give up a separate and divergent
economic policy in favor of a merger that would be of equal benefit to both Parliaments. Not all
on either side were happy with the Union that many historians see as a result of "judicious
bribery". The mercantile interests in Edinburgh did not represent the whole nation. The people of
the Highlands certainly were not consulted in the matter. In particular, the nation had to balance
the loss of its ancient independence against the need to open itself up to a wider world and
greater opportunities than it could provide by itself. For its part, England gained a much-needed
security, for no longer could European powers use Scotland as a base for an attack on its
southern neighbor.
Scotland kept its legal system and the Presbyterian Kirk, but gave up its Parliament in exchange
for 45 seats in the House of Commons and 16 seats in the House of Lords. The Act proclaimed
that there would be "one United Kingdom by the name of Great Britain" with one Protestant
ruler, one legislature and one system of free trade. The Act of Union settled the boundaries of a
state known as Great Britain whose people, despite their differences in traditions, cultures and
languages, were held together simply because they felt different from people in other countries.
The people of Britain also felt superior; they were constantly being compared with those of other
countries in Europe as being better fed, better housed and better governed. Part of the feeling of
superiority came from the acquisition of so much overseas territory; part came from government
propaganda and the need to suppress dissent, part came from technical advances that already
heralded the coming of both the agricultural and industrial revolutions.
Eighteenth Century England
The Electress of Hanover, Sophia, died the same year as Anne. When her son George left
Hanover to come to England, knowing but a few words of the English language, there were
many who wished a restoration of the Stuart monarchy. In this period of rapid Anglicization of
Scotland and the acceptance, through the Union, of the political and economic situation that
prevailed in Protestant England, the Stuarts were not yet finished. In 1708, their hopes were
raised once again when an invasion of Scotland, launched from France managed to avoid the
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British fleet. Unfortunately, and by now predictably, the opportunity was lost; the troops landed
too far north to be effective in taking Edinburgh. Then, in 1715, James II's son, James Edward
Stuart, who was James III to his supporters was persuaded to undertake an invasion of England,
"the fifteen."
It had been highly apparent that attempts at restoring the Stuarts would have meant the
replacement of a Protestant monarchy, however foreign and dull it appeared, with a Roman
Catholic dynasty, for one thing, and it was far too late for that. For another, the restoration would
have to be accomplished by a foreign (and Catholic) army of occupation. The Stuarts were
backed by France, Britain's most obvious and strongest enemy, a Popish enemy at that. The
British press was full of the horrors of life in the Catholic states of Europe and the blessings that
the island nation enjoyed under its Protestant rulers. Despite the nostalgia and the romanticism
attached to the exiled Stuarts, and their wide support in Scotland, it was unthinkable for most
Britons to contemplate their return. The majority of people in the nation were not in the mood for
what surely would be a bloody and prolonged civil war. They certainly did not welcome the idea
of a Jacobite army that would be mainly composed of French troops marauding through their
land. In addition, it seemed as if the struggle of Whig against Tory that had brought the country
to the verge of civil war had exhausted everyone. The attempt of the Pretender to regain the
throne for the Stuarts in 1715 thus fizzled out like a damp squib.
СРСП-20
The Age of Empire, continued
George I (1714-1727)
The first great crisis of the reign of George I, that fool of a king (who was ridiculed for his
eccentric behavior and poor English), was the Jacobite Rebellion. He was lucky that his nation
was in no mood for another civil war. James Stuart was sent back to France after failing to rally
Scotland behind him. It was left to the Young Pretender, Charles Edward to try again during the
reign of George II. The other crisis that affected the reign of the first Hanoverian monarch of
England was known as the South Sea Bubble.
Briefly, the South Sea Company, founded in 1711, had acquired a monopoly in the lucrative
Spanish slave trade and other trading ventures in South America. Prices of its shares increased
dramatically when the government announced that the company, and not the Bank of England,
should finance the National Debt. Dozens of irrational schemes came into being as the result of
the ridiculously high prices of company shares. They all crashed in October of 1720 when shares
began to tumble; many investors were ruined.
The fiasco, involving many government ministers, needed someone to straighten things out, and
the right person appeared in Robert Walpole, who defended the ministers and the Crown, being
rewarded with the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer and leading the House of Commons
for 20 years. Walpole straightaway reduced import and export duties to encourage trade and took
care of the financial crisis by amalgamating the South Sea Company stock with that of the Bank
of England and the East India Company. An astute business man, he kept England at peace and
he increased the powers and privileges of Parliament.
At the Act of Settlement of 1701, Parliament had insisted that there should be a Privy Council of
80 members. King George reduced it to 30, and from these, a smaller group formed the cabinet,
and an even smaller group, the inner cabinet. And it was here that the important decisions were
made. As "German George" knew little English, understood practically nothing of the English
constitution and stayed away from cabinet meetings, Walpole rose to a position of chief minister.
He continued his leading role after the death of George I in 1727. Walpole's day-to-day
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supervision of the administration of the country, unhampered by royal interference, gave him
such influence that he is remembered as England's first Prime Minister (The title originated as a
term of abuse when his opponents mockingly used it to describe his extraordinary power).
George II (1727-1760)
Among the many events that took place during the reign of George II, there were two that were
to have a profound influence, not only upon his kingdom of Britain, but upon much of the world
outside its borders. The first of these events began in 1728 when Yorkshire carpenter John
Harrison created a working model of a practical, spring-driven timekeeper that would win the
prize offered by the London's Board of Longitude to solve a centuries-old puzzle; how to make
the accurate determining of longitude possible. (In 1676, the Greenwich Observatory had been
established to study the position of the moon among the fixed stars and to set a standard time to
help sailors fix their longitude). In 1730, John Hadley invented the reflecting quadrant that made
it possible to determine latitude at noon or by night. Extremely accurate, it was quickly adopted
by the admiralty.
In 1736, Harrison presented his ship's chronometer to London's Board of Longitude; accurate to
with one-tenth of a second per day. Made weatherproof and placed aboard ships, along with the
observations of astronomer Nevil Maskelyne, published in 1763 that calculated longitude at sea
from lunar distances, the chronometer was to revolutionize the world's shipping. It was to prove
of particular importance to English navigators in their constant, unending search for new markets
for English products, new trading centers and eventually, new lands to settle her surplus
criminals and poor, unemployed citizens. (The chronometer was proved to be a success aboard
HMS Deptford in 1761).
The second major event began at Oxford University, also in 1728, when a group of students
began to call divinity student Charles Wesly a "Methodist," because of his methodical study
habits. Charles was to help found a holy club with his brother John and others for strict
observance of sacrament and the Sabbath, along with reading the New Testament and
undergoing fasting. Brother John was to begin preaching Methodism at Bristol in 1739.
The first conference of Methodists was held in 1744. From then on, the movement, aided by his
indefatigable preaching and wide spread travels in the British Isles, spread rapidly. The new
religious ideas were to take root in North America where ideas of political independence from
Britain were to merge with ideas of religious independence from the Church of England.
At home, as strong-willed as George II seemed to be, he could be controlled by his wife,
Caroline of Anspach, whose influence ensured that Walpole keep his position as prime minister
in the new regime. When Caroline died in 1737, it was increasingly difficult for Walpole to keep
England out of war with Spain, brought about by the continual harassment of British trading
ships by the Spanish. When a certain Captain Jenkins presented the sight of his sun-dried (or
pickled) ear, supposedly cut off by the Spanish in 1731, Parliament was enraged and demanded
action. Walpole was unable to effect a compromise and England went to war in 1739. At the
same time, the War of the Austrian Succession had broken out on the Continent.
Because George II feared a French invasion of his beloved Duchy of Hanover, England was
forced to involve itself in the war that primarily involved the coalition of Central European
powers, supported by France, to despoil Maria Theresa, the new Arch Duchess of Austria, of her
possessions. To the dismay of the jingoistic Parliament, George signed a treaty with France to
protect Hanover, Walpole was held responsible and defeated in Parliament after losing support
of the Commons. Walpole had coined the term "balance of power" in a speech in Parliament in
June 1741; it gave expression to the principle that was to guide British foreign policy for decades
to come.
Despite King George's attempts to stay neutral in the European conflict, he had to fight. At
Dettingen, he personally led his forces, and won a great victory over the French. When France
declared war on England in 1744, believing that she was the cause of most of her troubles,
Parliament was forced on the defensive. As so many times before in the island nation's history,
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however, the notorious British weather helped destroy a French invasion fleet in 1744. It was
now time for the Jacobite Cause to resurrect itself.
The Last Gasp of the Jacobites
Incredibly enough, after the farce of the last attempt to regain the throne, the Stuarts were to try
again. Despite having endured so many years of ill-fortune, the Jacobite cause was still powerful
enough to be considered the greatest threat to Britain in mid-century. In 1718, the Spanish
government, in the conflict with Britain for control of trade, had sponsored an abortive raid on
Scotland. Though the attempt ended in a defeat for the Highlanders at Glenshiel, an English
newspaper argued in 1723 that the people of the Scottish Highlands "will never fail to join with
foreign Popish powers..."
As if to fulfill this prophecy, 22 years later, Charles Edward seized his opportunity. At a time
when George II was away in his beloved Hanover and the bulk of the British Army fighting in
Flanders and Germany, the Stuart prince landed in the Hebrides in July 1745. He was
encouraged by promise of support from France, and indeed some ships did reach Scotland with
supplies and artillery. By September, Charles had rallied thousands of Highlanders, was aided by
the Provost's who had secretly left a gate open and had taken the city of Edinburgh (where he
assured the Presbyterian clergy of religious toleration), captured Carlisle, and defeated a small
British force at Prestonpans where his soldiers employed their broadswords in the famous
Highland charge.
Flushed with victory over the obviously ill-trained and ill-prepared British force of General
Cope, the Scottish army marched south to England, hoping to rally support all along the way.
Yet, it soon became apparent that Charles Edward was not going to be successful in raising the
men and money necessary to sustain the invasion. Even in the Scottish Lowlands, support had
not been forthcoming. Interests of commerce overrode those of patriotism. Despite Charles
Edward's bold plans to advance on London, Lord Murray argued for a return to Scotland. The
Prince reluctantly admitted the lack of support from English Jacobites. In addition, misleading
reports about the strength of the English forces convinced the majority of the Council to return to
Scotland.
An English force that caught up with the retreating Scottish army was soundly defeated at
Clifton, the last battle to be fought on English soil. Once again, a concentrated Highland charge
managed to dislodge British dragoons. Scottish success, however, only strengthened the resolve
of the pursuing troops under Cumberland, who was determined to use his superior fire power and
strength of numbers to his advantage the next time. The battle also led to a feeling among the
Highlanders that they were invincible in a charge involving hand-to-hand fighting. They were
almost correct. On the bumpy, uneven pasture lands of Culloden in April 1745 with a
considerable distance to cover under fire before they could reach the ranks of the English troops,
the bravery of the charging Highlanders would not be enough.
The enormous casualties suffered by the Highlanders in their futile charges against the
entrenched infantry, and the slaughter of their wounded was followed by a brutal aftermath.
"Bliadna Thearlaich," Charlie's Year to the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, was finished. The
Jacobites were left without any hope of reorganizing, though they still hoped for support from
the Bourbons in Spain and France. This was not forthcoming, for struggles in Europe were
shifting to those for control of North America.
After Culloden, Scotland was ready to play a major role in the expansion of the British Empire.
In particular, the fighting qualities and heroic traditions of the Highlanders were put to good use
in British armies sent to fight in Europe and further afield. The Seven Years War (1756-63) that
closely followed the failure of the Jacobite Rebellion was the most dramatically successful war
ever fought by Britain. Success followed success (mostly at the expense of France) in Canada,
India, West Africa and the West Indies, and the tiny North Atlantic island of Britain found itself
at the head of a vast, world empire in which the Scots played a leading part.
An New Role for the Island Kingdom
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The War of the Austrian Succession was ended by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. But
Britain was still anxious to fight for possession of new lands and trade routes. After Walpole's
resignation, the country was led by William Pitt ("the elder"), a man who believed that the
strength of the nation's economy depended upon overseas expansion as well as the defence of its
trading outposts. Thus Britain found itself at war with France again, only the theatres of war
were now primarily in North America and India. In the Seven Years War, England's ally Prussia
was relied upon to conduct operations against France and Austria in Europe. In the sub-continent
of India, Robert Clive won important victories to establish British presence at the expense of the
French.
In other areas, at first, the wars went badly. Admiral Byng was disgraced when he lost Minorca
to the French in 1757. In North America, the British colonists suffered defeats at the hands of the
French, who began Fort Duquesne; in Europe, the French occupied Hanover. Then William Pitt
took over, the person described by Frederick the Great as having been "a man brought forth by
England's labor," and under his direction of Parliament, his countries' armed forces began a
string of victories that made them seem invincible.
In 1747 James Lind had reported on the success of citrus juice in combating scurvy, and ten
years later The Royal Navy received the new sextant created by John Campbell. (In 1775, upon
his return from the Pacific, Captain James Cook received a medal from the Royal Society for
finally conquering scurvy; he had brought 118 men "through all climates for three years and 18
days with the loss of only one man.) He had succeeded with sauerkraut: the Royal Navy ordered
all its ships to give out lime juice as a daily ration in 1795.
In North America, British troops captured Fort Duquesne and renamed it Fort Pitt (later
Pittsburgh); other victories occurred at Senegal, the centre of the French West African slave
trade and at Guadeloupe in the West Indies. In Canada, General Wolfe captured Louisburg and
then Quebec, in 1759, a victory that was followed up by General Amherst to complete the
surrender of Canada to Britain.
At the time of King George II's death in 1760, England was growing rich from profits made in
sugar, tobacco, sea-island cotton and other products produced by slave labor. A new leisured
class was rapidly developing that would eventually demand its say in government. Britain's
prosperity had come about despite the favoring of Hanover by King George; it reflected the
growing influence of the mercantile classes in Parliament. It also reflected the indomitable
energy and initiative of William Pitt.
Pitt gathered all power into his own hands; he controlled finance, administration and the military.
He understood fully the threat from France for hegemony in North America, and he took the vital
steps to counter it. His war with France has been seen by many historians as the First World
War; it certainly involved more than a mere redistribution of strategic forts and a re-shuffling of
frontiers. It also took considerable toll on England's resources and a general war-weariness gave
fodder to those enemies of Pitt who worked for his downfall.
George III (1760-1820)
The new king saw himself as a kind of savior; freeing the country from the tyranny of a corrupt
Parliament and restoring it into the hands of a virtuous, honorable, "thoroughly English"
monarch, one who was perfectly capable of choosing his own ministers. Lord Bute was more to
his liking than William Pitt. When peace negotiations began with France, Pitt refused to desert
Prussia. France then turned to Spain for an alliance to help her regain her North American
possessions. Pitt's urging of war with Spain met with fierce resistance in the Commons and he
was forced to resign.
Seen by historian Carlyle, as "King of England for four years," William Pitt undoubtedly was
one of England's great leaders, a true statesman with a vision expanding far beyond the political
boundaries of England. His successor in Parliament, Lord Bute, had nothing of Pitt's political
acumen, wide-ranging vision or experience. Only months after Pitt's resignation, England was
forced to declare war on Spain, but despite a series of overwhelming victories, including those
by Admiral Rodney in the Caribbean, that made her mistress of the world and master of the seas,
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Bute did not wish to further antagonize a severely weakened France and Spain. Besides, the king
wished to end what he called " a bloody and expensive war."
Britain gained handsomely at the Treaty of Paris of 1763, yet France and Spain came off rather
well. It took a considerable amount of political chicanery and bribery to ensure the ratification of
the treaty by Parliament, for it was denounced by Pitt as giving too much away and for
containing the seeds of future war. Britain did gain Canada, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton; the right
to navigate the Mississippi; the West Indian Islands of Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica and
Tobago in the West Indies; Florida (from Spain); Senegal in Africa; and the preservation in India
of the East India Company's monopoly; and in Europe, Minorca.
To Pitt's dismay and fears for the future, France was appeased with the islands of St. Pierre and
Miquelon, islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, fishing rights off Newfoundland (the nursery of
the French navy, later to play such a decisive role in the American War of Independence) and the
rich sugar islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Spain, in turn, received Havana, which
controlled the sea-going trade in the Caribbean and Manila, a center of the trade with China.
Thus France's naval power had been left untouched. Britain was later to pay dearly in the loss of
its American colonies.
As George insisted on picking his own ministers, he appointed four different men to lead the
country in the 1760's: the Earl of Bute, George Grenville, the Marquee of Rockingham, and the
Elder Pitt. His last choice, his personal favorite, was Lord North. Between them, they lost
America.
СРСП-21
The Age of Empire, continued
The American War of Independence
The final revolt of Britain's American colonies was a long time coming: it certainly could have
been foreseen and better prepared for by the intransigent London government. The enormous
expense of the Seven Years War, and the protection of the Colonies from the designs of France,
led Parliament to insist that Americans should pay for their own defence. It therefore could
justify the infamous sugar tax of 1764 and the stamp duty one year later. But these taxes were
only the latest in a long history of repressive measures that were designed solely to benefit
England's mercantile, industrial and agricultural interests.
In 1651, the Navigation Act forbade importation of goods into England or her colonies except by
English vessels or by vessels of the countries producing the goods. This was passed to help the
nation's merchant navy in their struggle against the Dutch. It was still too early to be a bone of
contention with the Colonies. In 1660, Charles I sought to strengthen the Navigation Acts in that
certain "enumerated articles" from the American colonies may be exported only to the British
Isles. These articles include tobacco, sugar, wool, molasses and many other essential items of
American livelihood; the result was widespread economic distress and political unrest, especially
in Virginia.
In 1663, a Second Navigation Act forbade English colonists to trade with other European
countries. In addition, European goods bound for America had to be unloaded at English ports
and reshipped. Export duties and profits to middlemen then made prices of the goods prohibitive
in the Colonies. In 1672, Parliament imposed customs duties on goods carried from one
American colony to another. Even though not many colonists were engaged in the woolen
industry, it was mostly restricted to their individual homes, further resentment came with the
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Woolens Act of 1699 that prevented any American colony from exporting wool, wool yarn, or
wool cloth to any place whatsoever."
Trading restrictions continued in 1733 when the Molasses Act taxed British colonists on the
molasses, rum and sugar imported from non-British West Indian islands. The price of rum, a
drink heavily favored because of its supposed therapeutic properties increased dramatically in
the Colonies. A hint of later rebellion was provided in 1741 when Salem sea captain Richard
Derby avoided the British Navigation Acts by sailing his schooner Volante under Dutch colors.
Six years later, London marine insurance companies began to charge exorbitant rates on ship and
cargo from New England to Caribbean ports, but large profits were made by American
merchantmen carrying cod from the Newfoundland banks.
In 1750, the Cumberland Gap through the Appalachians was discovered by English physician
Thomas Walker. Colonists could now break out of their relatively narrow coastal areas and move
westward; ideas of breaking away from the Mother Country were sure to follow the pioneers as
they moved over the mountains in search of new lands to settle, farther away from English
interests. By 1763, the Mississippi River was recognized as the boundary between the British
colonies and the Louisiana Territory. Meanwhile, the raising of the bounty on whales by the
English government in 1750 did much to encourage the New England fishing industry, not to be
overlooked in the growing aspirations for independence.
In the meantime, the population of the American Colonies was enjoying a rapid population
increase, due to the high birth rate and high rates of immigration, especially from Germany,
Ireland and other countries not disposed to favor keeping ties with Britain. A rolling iron mill
established in New Hampshire also gave notice that the colonists could engage in an industry
that had hitherto been an English monopoly.
In 1757, after a visit to England, Benjamin Franklin was able to report to the Colonies just how
far American importers could safely go in flouting London's mercantile acts. In 1763, there was
an angry reaction to George III's decree that Colonists must remain east of the sources of rivers
that flow into the Atlantic. The decree was honored only in the breach and further intensified the
Colonists' growing desires for independence from the dictates of London. The king had not
wished to antagonize Spain and France; the land-hungry Colonists were indifferent.
In April 1763, Parliament passed the Sugar Act and sent customs officials to order colonial
governors to enforce it. In May, the Currency Act then forbade the Colonies from printing paper
money. Also in May, Boston lawyer James Otis denounced "taxation without representation,"
and urged the colonies to unite to oppose Britain's new tax laws. During the same month, Boston
merchants organized a boycott of British luxury goods and initiated a policy of non-importation.
As the colonists had contributed little tax support to England, the government decided at this
juncture to take a harder line American industry, in the meanwhile, received a great boost by the
invention of Pennsylvania mechanic James Davenport that could spin and card wool.
Events started moving to a head in 1765. First, Parliament passed the Quartering Act ordering
colonists to provide barracks and supplies to British troops (quite fair considering the expense of
maintaining the defence of the Colonies). The Stamp Act, passed in March, was particularly
resisted: it was the first measure to impose direct taxes in the Colonies. It required revenue
stamps on all newspapers, pamphlets, playing cards, dice, almanacs and legal documents. In
May, in the Virginia House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry stood up to denounce the Act, despite
cries of "Treason" from other delegates. The Act was also denounced in Boston, where the Sons
of Liberty formed clubs to show their resistance. In October a Stamp Act Congress convened in
New York to protest taxation without representation and resolved to import no goods that
required payment of duty. Ironically, the greatest protest against the Act came, not in the
Colonies, but in England, where merchants complained that it was contrary to the true
commercial interests of the Empire.
Self-confident American colonials were beginning to flex their muscles. In Philadelphia the
opening of the first American medical school, later to become the College of Physicians and
Surgeons, showed only too well that the fledgling nation could develop its own institutions. In
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commerce, shipping interests were booming. Exports of tobacco, bread and flour, fish, rice,
indigo and wheat were streaming out of the ports of Boston, New York and Providence.
Philadelphia, with over 25,000 inhabitants, had become the second largest city in the British
Empire.
Early in 1766, it seemed that reconciliation was in the offing when Parliament, partly in response
to the persuasive powers of visiting Benjamin Franklin, repealed the Stamp Act. However in
March, the Declaratory Act rekindled the flames of colonial resentment, for it declared that the
King, by and with the consent of Parliament, had the authority to make laws and to bind the
British colonies in all respects.
Though William Pitt had returned as Prime Minister, his powers were no longer as effectual, and
the arrogant Lord Townsend introduced the infamous Townsend Act, a Bill that imposed duties
on American imports of paper, glass, lead and tea. Rebellion may not have been immediately on
the minds of the Colonists and John Dickinson's "Letters from a Farmer" advised caution and
loyalty to King and Empire, but the Townsend Act would be on the minds of the merchant
classes. They were now beginning to despair of bringing the British Government to reason
through limited resistance.
In 1767, Daniel Boone took his party through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, thus defying
the 1763 decree of King George, completely out of touch with the aspirations of the American
Colonists. Two years later he was emulated by a party of Virginians moving into what later
became Tennessee (10 years later, Boone led a party to break the Wilderness Road to be used by
more than 10,000 pioneers pouring into the new territories of Western Tennessee and Kentucky).
When delegates from 28 towns in Massachusetts met at Faneuil Hall, Boston in September to
draw up a statement of grievances, following anti-British riots, infantry regiments were brought
in from Canada. More riots broke out in Boston the following June when Customs officials
seized a sloop belonging to John Hancock. In the meantime, Cherokee lands were ceded to the
Crown in the Carolina and Virginia Colonies, as were lands of the Iroquois between the Ohio
and Tennessee Rivers. Another pioneering journey was that of a fleet of American whalers into
the Antarctic Ocean to begin a new and most profitable industry.
In 1769, a huge step towards independence was taken by the Virginia House of Burgesses that
issued its resolutions rejecting Parliament's right to tax British colonists. When the governor
dissolved the assembly, its members met in private and agreed not to import any duty-liable
goods. In January, 1770, at the Battle of Golden Hill, New York, the first blood was shed
between British troops and the colonists.
In March, the so-called "Boston Massacre" further inflamed passions, already being incited to
rebellion by radicals in many of the Colonial governments (aided by such Whig newspapers as
"The Massachusetts Spy"). The repeal of the Townsend Acts by newly-appointed Prime Minister
Lord North, came too late to assuage those who had already made up their minds that the future
of their country was as an independent nation, completely freed from its political links with
Britain.
Events moved fitfully towards an inevitable conclusion. The so-called Boston "Tea-Party" in
December 1773 had protested British taxes on American imports and in September 1774, the
first Continental Congress of twelve colonies met in Philadelphia. It is interesting to note that the
protest was organized by Samuel Adams, supported by John Hancock, whose smuggling of
contraband tea had been made unprofitable by the measures passed in Parliament. "Men of Sense
and property" such as George Washington, however, deplored the actions of those who staged
the "Boston Tea-Party" and it is safe to say, at this juncture, that the majority of the colonists
opposed independence, or at least, were not willing to fight Britain to gain it.
The first Continental Congress quickly adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, but no
less than George Washington himself wrote that "... no thinking man in all of North America
desires independence." Benjamin Franklin also cautioned against a break with the mother
country, for despite its unkindness "of late," the link was worth preserving. The radicals were
still few in number and all measures taken by the Colonies were undertaken to pressure the
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British Government to listen to their grievances, not to force its hand. However, when news of
the Bostonian's "tea-party" reached Parliament, outrage by many of its members produced its
coercive acts in a failed attempt to bring the colonists to heel. Boston Harbor was closed until the
East India Company was reimbursed for its lost tea and until trade could be resumed and duties
collected. The acts were a fatal blunder by the Prime Minister, Lord North. As nothing else, they
united the colonies against the government.
Other "tea-parties" followed Boston's example, and many colonies sent supplies to help the
Bostonians survive the closing of its port. 1774 can be called the year of the pamphlets, with
huge amounts of tracts being written and distributed throughout the American Colonies, arguing
the pro's and con's of independence. In March, 1775, Patrick Henry made his "Give me liberty or
give me death" speech, and the dye had been cast. The war began in April 1775 when a force of
redcoats, sent to seize war material stored at Concord, were met by a force of patriots. The
resulting skirmishes of Lexington and Concord meant that there would be no turning back for
either side.
The War of Independence can be summarized briefly. The strong determination of the colonists
to make themselves completely independent would surely have succeeded in the long run, but
they were aided enormously by incompetent English generals. One George Washington in
charge of English redcoats would have quickly ended the rebellion. In addition, without the
notoriously corrupt Earl of Sandwich in charge at the Admiralty, the Royal Navy would have
surely held the seas against the French relief forces. Yet even with these crippling burdens, the
war started well for the government.
In June, the Second Continental Congress had followed after the urging of Richard Henry Lee of
Virginia to make foreign alliances and form a confederation. The resolutions were adopted on
July 2, 1776. Efforts to end the war by negotiation broke off. At first, the colonists were no
match for the better trained, better armed and better disciplined regulars of the British army,
augmented by King George's Hessians, despite the incompetence of its generals.
The publication of The Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson which was signed by
56 delegates was no doubt influenced by the publication of Thomas Paine's Common Sense
written in July 1776. It created a major shift in political emphasis. One of its immediate effects
was to create a will and strength to see the thing through. Before the Declaration, the
revolutionaries had seen their cause as mainly fighting for their rights as British subjects against
a stubborn English Parliament; after the Declaration, they saw their fight as necessary to protect
their natural rights as free men against a tyrannical and out-of-touch king. This indeed was a
cause worth fighting for.
To aid in the fight, General Washington appointed Polish military expert Kosciusco to help train
the volunteers, "the citizen-soldiers" who made up the bulk of the American armies. Following
many early defeats, it was a surprising victory over the Hessians at Trenton on Christmas Day,
1776 which provided a stirring impetus to continue. In January, Washington followed up his
victory at Trenton by defeating Cornwallis at Princeton. Later in the year, however, when he lost
the Battle of Brandywine and retreated to Valley Forge, General Howe failed to consolidate his
victory, preferring to sit out the winter in Philadelphia, and the American army was miraculously
able to recover.
In Parliament, Lord North expressed his dismay at the poor leadership shown by the British
commanders in America. When the British forces, surrendered one of its armies under Burgoyne
at Saratoga, who returned to England, it was the beginning of the end for the valiant redcoat
armies. Poorly led, forced to march and counter-march through untracked wildernesses,
dispersed over hundreds of miles of unknown territory and harassed every step of the way, they
had been betrayed by the incompetence of their officers as much as by the determination of the
Colonists under Washington's inspired leadership. The victory at Saratoga galvanized into action
the French government, who followed up its policy of aiding the Colonists with money and
supplies by recognizing American independence and forming an alliance with the fledgling
nation. The French fleet was to prove decisive in the struggle and ultimate victory of the
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Americans. In 1779, Spain and Holland, for reasons of their own, also provided aid in the form
of money, supplies and military hardware. Not only that, but sympathetic (and profit-hungry)
British merchants, including Robert Walpole, were engaged in smuggling arms and provisions to
the Americans through the West Indies.
When Cornwallis surrendered his troops at Yorktown, after foolishly digging in where he had no
natural defences except the sea, which was blocked the French fleet, no further military
operations of any consequence took place. The British armies in North America were exhausted.
The War was over. Signed on September 3rd, 1783, the Treaty of Paris recognized the
independence of the American Colonies. Britain's great age of Empire, paradoxically was just
about to begin
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ЕКІНШІ
№
АРАЛЫҚ БАҚЫЛАУ
Тақырыптар
Апталар
реті
Ұпайлар
Бақылау
түрі
1
The Grows of Empire
8- апта
5б
Пikiр талас
2
Expansion of
Empire:Australia
8- апта
5б
Пikiр талас
3
Between the Two World
Wars
World War II
9-апта
5б
Коллоквиум
4
The Development of
Cristian Society in Early
England
Part II
Part III
13-апта
5б
Коллоквиум
5
Saxon churches:TheChurch
of St Laurence
13-апта
5б
Коллоквиум
6
Monasticism in Britain
The Legend of Waltham
Abbey
14-апта
5б
Коллоквиум
ОБСӨЖ 30 ұпай
105
СРСП-22
The Age of Empire, continued
The Growth of Empire
The long struggle between Britain and France for world supremacy continued to be fought all
over the globe. For 23 years, Britain was at war with the greatest military power on earth, led by
its great military genius Napoleon. Its results were to destroy the ambitions of the French
dictator, to impose a New Order on the whole of Europe by force and to vindicate Britain's
equally firm resolve to not only resist, but to uphold the imposition of order only through
international law.
United in their Protestantism more than anything else, the Welsh and Scots and English thought
of themselves as British; it was their Protestantism (and perhaps their representatives in
Parliament) that held them together; they thought of themselves as a united, religious and moral
people. Thus it was only right for them to go out as bringers of enlightenment, mainly through
the conflicting aims of trade and religious conversion (the latter always second to the former) to
the far corners of the earth. The anarchy and confusion that prevailed in France during its
Revolution were looked on with revulsion in England, now having come to terms with the loss of
its American colonies and having become more of a united kingdom in the painful process.
On the Continent, the armies of France crushed those of Austria, repelled those of Prussia and
helped establish a French Republic. (The monarchy was abolished by the National Convention in
September, 1791: King Louis XVI was executed in January, 1793.) When France invaded the
Netherlands, England was asked to help protect the navigation rights to the Dutch. The French
Republic then declared war on Britain, Holland and Spain who formed an alliance. Napoleon
Bonaparte occupied Rome in 1796, made the Pope a prisoner and the same year assembled an
army to invade England. He went to Egypt instead, where his forces captured Alexandria and
Cairo from the Mamelukes. Two years later, he defeated the Turks, with their British allies at
Abukir. He then left to take command of his armies in Europe as first consul and dictator of
France.
Napoleon continued his victories in Europe, defeating the Austrians at Marengo, 1800, but a
temporary peace signed at Amiens in March, during the following year gave Britain control of
Trinidad and Ceylon in exchange for its other maritime conquests. A renewal of hostilities and
the need for France to find adequate finances led to the doubling of the United States by its
"Louisiana Purchase" in 1802.
Napoleon once more contemplated invading England by assembling a fleet at Boulogne and
negotiating with Robert Emmet to lead a rebellion in Ireland. In India, another British victory
was achieved by Arthur Wellesly over native forces. In France, in May 1804, Napoleon was
proclaimed Emperor. Spain then declared war on Britain. Early in 1805, Viscount Nelson
blockaded a French fleet intent on invading England.
On October 21, 1805 one of the greatest sea victories in England's long history took place at
Trafalgar, when Admiral Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet near Gibralter.
All French pretensions as a great sea power were effectively ended by this decisive battle during
which Nelson was mortally wounded. (It is to be noted that the British crews were now free of
scurvy which continued its deadly toll on enemy ships).
On land, however, the French armies continued their string of victories, with Napoleon defeating
the Austrians and Russians at the Battle of Austerlitz in December. Early in 1806, the Holy
Roman Empire came to an end after a thousand years when the Confederation of the Rhine was
set up under French control. Prussia now joined the fight against Napoleon's grandiose
ambitions. Napoleon's Berlin Declaration inaugurated the Continental system designed to cut off
food and supplies reaching Britain from the Continent. When British ships bombarded
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Copenhagen in September for joining the Continental system, Denmark allied with France and
Russia declared war on Britain.
French troops then marched into Spain to prevent occupation by Britain, who invaded Portugal
under Sir Arthur Wellesly, soon to succeed Sir John Moore as British Commander. It was the
beginning of the end for the armies of Napoleon despite a costly victory over the Austrians at
Wagram, leading to the Treaty of Schonbrunn that ended hostilities between the two countries.
In March 1810, Napoleon married the Austrian Archduchess Maria Luisa. No-one in Paris
witnessing the construction of the Arc de Triomphe could have guessed the fate soon to overtake
their triumphant Emperor.
In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia, the same year that Britain and the United States began a 30
month war over issues that included the impressment of US seamen. Wellesly continued his
success in Spain against the French armies, and when Napoleon reached Moscow, he found the
Russian armies had prudently withdrawn and the city almost empty. The European war then
seesawed back and forth; Austria renewed its enmity with France; Napoleon won at Dresden,
was utterly defeated at Leipzig, and Wellesly continued his successes in Spain to cross the
borders into France.
An alternating series of defeats and victories then followed for the French armies, now opposed
by the formidable Prussian leader Marshall von Blucher as well as Wellesly, promoted to Duke
of Wellington. Napoleon's abdication was followed by his internment at Elba. His escape from
Elba and consequent defeat at Waterloo in June, 1815 at the hands of Blucher and Wellington
finally ended his European dreams. The war came to an end during the same year when the
Congress of Vienna rewrote the map of Europe. Similarly, the Treaty of Ghent ended the ''War
of 1812' between Britain and the United States. With her armies victorious in Europe, England
was now poised to assume the mantle of world leadership in many areas.
Leadership implied responsibility and created a dilemma as to which side England should
support in the conflicts of Europe. Was France, the known, or Russia, the unknown, the more
dangerous rival? In 1854, however, common interests brought Britain and France together in
defense of the crumbling Empire of Turkey against the ever-increasing aggressiveness of Russia.
Britain, in particular, wanted to keep Russia out of the Straits and away from the Mediterranean.
The result was the costly muddle known as the Crimean War that began in 1854 and that solved
nothing.
The horrors of the War have been well documented. The refusal of the Duke of Wellington to
initiate reforms in the army, the general incompetence of the military leaders such as Lord
Cardigan of the Light Brigade fame, the lack of an efficient central authority to manage supplies,
send reinforcements and ensure adequate training created disaster after disaster in the field. The
main enemy proved to not be the incompetent Russian armies, but the numbing cold aided by
cholera, dysentery, typhus and scurvy as well as the lack of adequate food, clothing and shelter.
Florence Nightingale and her gallant nurses did their best to remedy the appalling hospital
conditions and the army's resentment at their "interference." The war ended when the allies took
Sebastopol after a costly siege and Russia, to prevent Austria from joining the allies, agreed to
the peace terms.
Other areas in which English soldiers were involved included India, where they had to deal with
the great mutiny; but a war with China over British export of opium from India in exchange for
silks and tea. The Chinese forbade the opium trade, rashly fired on a British warship and were
bombarded by a Royal Navy squadron. The Opium War ended with the Treaty of Nanking in
1842 that opened up five "Treaty Ports" for trade and gave Hong Kong to Britain. The second
war with China came in 1857 out of an incident involving the Arrow, a Hong Kong schooner
sailing under a British flag. Palmerston won an election on the issue, vowing to punish the
insolent Chinese for arresting the ship on a piracy charge. An Anglo-French force captured forts
leading to Tientsin and Peking, won concessions from the Chinese, including more "treaty
ports," gained diplomatic representation and the right for Christian missionaries to practice their
trade in China. Palmerston continued his "gun-boat" policy by later aiding Garibaldi's invasion
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of Sicily and the Neapolitan mainland by sending warships. His government also compensated
the United States for the mischief caused by the Confederate raider Alabama built on
Merseyside.
The Agricultural Revolution
King George III had shown such a great interest in the agricultural improvements taking place in
England that he was known as "Farmer George." He had much to be proud of; his countrymen
were at the forefront of creating changes in the way the land was farmed and livestock raised that
would dramatically change the face of agriculture, an undertaking that had for so long been
traditionally conservative and opposed to change.
In 1600 "Theatre d'agriculture des champs" had been published in France by Huguento Ollver de
Serres recommending revolutionary changes in crop growing methods. It had been mainly
ignored by all, but there were some in England who took notice. There, land enclosures had been
taking place steadily since the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, with the great
barons amassing huge swathes of the best agricultural lands when the king sold them off.
Massive numbers of peasants and small landowners were displaced.
A riot against the enclosures in Elizabeth's reign was severely dealt with, and the enclosures
continued apace. Notorious winter weather continued to plague a system that was reluctant to
introduce major changes except to increase the amount of land available for the raising of sheep
and cattle. Potatoes had been planted in the German states as early as 1621 though much of
Europe remained in fear of the tubers' spreading leprosy but their food value was too great to be
ignored.
By 1631, potato production in Europe was so great that a population explosion ensued. In
England, population growth had been more or less increasing at the same slow rate for hundreds
of years, but began a rapid rise in the 18th century. It was simply a matter of the nation being
better fed. Land enclosures may have been protested vigorously by the peasantry, but they did
result in better management, allowed for selective breeding of stock and experiments with
fertilization and machinery that produced better crops.
In 1701 Jethro Tull's seed-planting drill had enormously increased crop production and lessened
waste. Tull had studied farming methods on the continent and was not reluctant to introduce
them into England. In 1733 he invented the two-wheeled plough and the four-coulter plough,
both of which, strenuously resisted at first by his labourers, had a great impact on future methods
of cultivation.
Another great pioneer was "Turnip" Townsend, Secretary of State under George II and Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. Townsend also studied foreign methods of land use and introduced the
practice of crop rotation into England, using turnips and clover to revitalize land left fallow and
to provide winter feed for livestock, whose manure in turn fertilized his fields. Townsend was
followed by Thomas Coke who worked on the principle "No fodder, no beasts: no beasts, no
manure; no manure, no crops." At Holkham, Coke continually worked on ways to improve crop
yield, contributing greatly to better breeds of both cattle and sheep.
It is to Robert Bakewell, however, that most of England's outstanding success in producing better
breeds of sheep and cattle is to be attributed. Bakewell pioneered methods of selection and the
secret of breeding, including breeding the new Leicester sheep. Farm animals became fatter,
hardier and healthier. Britain became a meat-eating nation, but it also enjoyed better and more
reliable supplies of bread and vegetables.
Even as early as 1707, England was enjoying the fruits of its explorations and settlements in
India. The opening of Fortnum and Mason's in London in that year attests to the increased
demand for foreign delicacies, English farmers having produced sufficient basic necessities. In
particular, farmers had realized that beef and mutton would be more profitable than powers of
draught and quantities of wool. In the latter part of the century, Arthur Young's tenure as
Secretary of the Board of Agriculture ensured that the new farming methods were accepted
throughout the nation (though it took many years for English farmers to utilize the iron plow,
developed in 1784 by James Small).
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In 1786, Scotsman Andrew Meilde developed the first successful threshing machine. In addition,
following the publication of Lady Montagu's "Inoculation Against Smallpox" in 1718, and after
the work of Edward Jenner in the 1790's, the killing disease began to be eliminated in England.
Hand in hand with the vast improvements in agriculture and medicine, an industrial revolution
was taking place that would also change the world forever. Progress in agriculture was to be
dwarfed by what took place in industry.
The Industrial Revolution
The progress of the industrial revolution is a long catalog of mechanical inventions by which the
labor and skill of the human worker was replaced by machines. It had its beginnings in the
depletion of England's forests in Elizabethan times to provide timber to build its great navies.
Coal was a ready substitute as fuel and it was abundant. The early part of the 17th century
brought a new emphasis on coal mining though effective methods of extracting it had to wait
until developments in the steam engine took place and mines could be drained of their everpresent water. The enormous increase in the price of firewood fueled a rush to find and extract
more coal. By 1655, even under the most primitive mining conditions, Newcastle was producing
half a million tons a year.
But coal was expensive and dangerous to mine. In 1627, Edward Somerset had invented a crude
steam engine. This was of little use, but in 1698, English engineer Thomas Savery improved
matters with his crude steam-powered "miner's friend" to pump water out of coal mines. A
further advance came in 1705, when Cornish blacksmith Thomas Newcomen produced his steam
engine to pump water out of mines. In 1709 a major breakthrough occurred when Abraham
Darby, who made iron boilers for the Newcomen engine, discovered that coke, made from coal,
could substitute for wood in a smelting furnace to make pig and cast iron. The industrial
revolution was on its way, the whole process being geared to producing for profit and ushering in
a totally new economic system.
In 1739, Benjamin Huntsman rediscovered the ancient method of making crucible steel at
Sheffield, soon to become a major British steel producer. In 1754, the first iron rolling mill was
established in Hampshire, the same year that the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and
Manufacture was formed. In the 1760's the Bridgewater Canal was opened to link Liverpool,
England's major port (which had profited enormously from the slave trade) with Leeds, a centre
of manufacturing. It heralded an era of rapid canal building, joining cities and towns all over the
nation and enabling manufactured goods and raw supplies to be shipped anywhere they were
needed.
In 1765, James Watt produced his steam engine, a far more efficient source of power than that of
Newcomen. During the same year, Brindley's Grand Truck Canal began construction to link the
western and eastern coastal ports of Britain. In 1769, Watt entered into partnership with Mathew
Boulton to produce his steam engines which would revolutionize industry and the world. In
1782, English ironmaster Henry Cort perfected his process of puddling iron, completely
changing the way wrought iron is produced, totally freeing it from its dependence upon charcoal
for fuel, and giving further impetus to the search for coal. The mining industry benefited greatly
from Humphrey Davy's invention of a safety lamp for miners in 1815.
At the same time that coal mining and iron manufacturing were making such rapid progress, the
textile industry was also changing English society. Labor costs had been halved by the invention
of Kay's flying shuttle in 1733, the first of the inventions by which the textile industry was
transformed. The same year saw the invention of a spinning machine by Wyatte and Paul that
redressed the gap between spinning and weaving. In 1765, Hargreave's spinning jenny completed
the balance, for it allowed enough thread to be produced for the weavers. A single worker could
now operate a number of spindles to produce several threads at once.
The move away from cottage industry to the factory system was further hastened in 1769 with
Arkwright's invention of a frame that could produce cotton thread hard and firm enough to
produce woven fabric. English cotton mills began to proliferate in Lancashire and Yorkshire.
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Both English and US economies were to benefit from Eli Whitney's cotton gin of 1792. In 1805,
Scotsman Patrick Clark developed a cotton thread that was to replace linen thread on Britain's
looms. The woolen industry was also to benefit enormously from the new machinery, especially
in Yorkshire. In 1779, Samuel Crompton devised his spinning mule, a landmark in the industrial
revolution.
With the steam engine replacing animal, wind, or water power, the Golden Age of domestic
industry was now over, and the lines of the factory system laid down. Sporadic riots against the
employment of the new machinery did nothing to halt their proliferation and with the increase
came a shift in the way industry was financed. (The Luddites began their activities in earnest in
1811 to no avail; quick execution of their leaders brought the movement to an end with only
sporadic outbreaks). The factory system was responsible for the development of the joint
capitalist enterprise that became such a powerful force in the nation's economic affairs. The
steam engine also affected and completely transformed transportation and though the canals had
their glorious years, they were soon to be eclipsed by the railroad.
James Watt patented his double-acting rotary steam engine in 1782, a great improvement on his
earlier invention. It was used to drive machinery of all kinds, beginning two years later at a
textile factory in Nottinghamshire. Women and children now left their homes and their spinning
wheels and looms to work in the mills, at first furnished by the rapidly flowing streams of the
North, but more and more powered by steam.
The 1780's saw the introduction of steam to power riverboats, in which the work US inventors
John Fitch, James Rumsey and Robert Fulton and the Scot William Syminton led the way. The
adaptation of Richard Trevithick's high pressure steam engine to propel a road vehicle in 1800 is
a major milestone in the development of the railroad. In 1804, in a trial run, Trevithick carried 10
tons of iron and 70 men by steam engine run on rails at Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. The locomotive
had arrived on the world's scene.
Only three years later the first paying passengers were taken on the mineral railroad world
linking Mumbles with Swansea, South Wales, using horses for power (It lasted until 1960 when
its electric trams were discontinued). English inventor George Stephenson ran his steam
locomotive on the Killingworth colliery railway in 1814, the first to go into regular service. In
September 1825, the world's first steam locomotive passenger service began as the Stockton and
Darlington Railway. (Ironically, this was the same year that the Erie Canal opened in the US to
link the Great Lakes with the Hudson and the Atlantic: only two years later, the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad, using rolling stock and rails imported mainly from Wales, began its challenge to
the Erie Canal).
The S.S. Aaron Manby, the world's first iron steamship was launched in April, 1822 but it took
many years for iron to displace wood in the world's navies. During the same year, the first iron
railroad bridge was completed by George Stephenson for the pioneering Stockton-Darlington
line.
The introduction of the hot blast by Scot James Neilson in 1828 made it possible not only to use
coal without having it coked first, but also to use anthracite to smelt iron. Huge coal fields were
thus made available in Scotland and Wales, though the biggest gains came in Pennsylvania when
Welsh iron master David Thomas built his first furnace on the Lehigh in 1839. In 1830, the
invention of the flanged T-rail by Robert Stevens in New Jersey laid the foundations of all future
railroad track developments. In the meantime, road transportation began to benefit enormously
through the improvement of highways brought about by the experiments of Scot MacAdam after
1815.
The snowball effect of all these inventions continued throughout the century. In 1856 Bessemer
introduced his revolutionary steel-making process, and a new industry was given to England and
the world. In 1864, Siemens invented the regenerative furnace, improving the strength and
durability of steel, needed for the vast networks of railroads sprouting up all over England. In
1879, an important advance came when Gilchrist-Thomas was able to remove phosphorous from
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the ores used in smelting (Germany and the US with great deposits of iron ore were particularly
grateful for this invention).
During Britain's rise to world supremacy in so many areas, it is sad to relate that so many of its
leading citizens made their fortunes from the slave trade. The nefarious business played a crucial
role in the development of Britain's mercantile interests.
СРСП-23
The Age of Empire, continued
England's Role in the Slave Trade
Only two years after Columbus discovered the New World, he brought back more than 500
Caribbean's to Spain to be sold as slaves. In 1501, African slaves were first introduced into
Hispaniola by Spanish settlers; the natives had already been severely decimated, resulting in a
labor shortage in the plantations. In 1511, African slaves were taken to Cuba. The nasty business
had begun in earnest.
By 1518 huge numbers of African slaves were arriving at Santo Domingo to harvest sugar cane.
The 1545 discovery of the Potosi silver mines as well as epidemics of typhus and smallpox
hastened the decline of the natives, used as slave labor and increased the importation of African
slaves to replace them. In 1560, Portugal also imported slaves into Brazil to replace native labor
in the sugar plantations.
English participation in the lucrative slave trade seems to have begun when John Hawkins
hijacked a Portuguese ship carrying Africans to Brazil in 1562. Hawkins traded the slaves at
Hispaniola for ginger, pearls and sugar, making a huge profit which could not be ignored by his
countrymen. One year later, Hawking sold a cargo of Black slaves in Hispaniola and the
floodgates were opened. Though Queen Elizabeth spoke out against the dark business, she later
took shares in Hawkins'' ventures, even lending him one of her ships in the enterprise that pitted
her adventurous navigators against those of Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands (It was
Hawkins who introduced tobacco into England in 1565).
In 1570 large scale exports of slaves to the Americas began. Ironically it was maize, introduced
into Africa from Brazil that ensured a steady food crop that fueled the population growth to
furnish a steady supply of slaves. In Europe a growing appetite for sugar as a sweetener for the
newly introduced beverage, tea (begun to be drunk in earnest in England in the mid-1600's), and
as a preservative for fruit, meant a great increase in sugar plantations in the Caribbean and thus
the need for more slaves. The Virginia colony received its first Black slaves in 1619. From this
time on they began to play a role in the North American economy. In 1627 English settlers
colonized Barbados and soon began to transform into the largest sugar grower in the islands.
In 1672, English privateers in the slave trade gave way to the Royal company, formed expressly
to take slaves from Africa to the Americas. In the North American Colonies, especially after
"King Philip's War" of 1676, the fast-swindling supply of native slaves was augmented by
Africans who were bought and sold at enormous profits. In 1698, Parliament opened the slave
trade to British merchants who began the triangular trade, taking rum from New England to
Africa, and from there, slaves to the Caribbean, from there West Indian sugar and molasses was
shipped to New England to produce more rum. By 1709, Britain was taking as many as 20,000
Black slaves a year to the Caribbean. However, the most active period in its participation in the
trade began when the South Sea Company received a grant to import 4,500 slaves a year into
Spain's New World colonies for the next thirty years.
As the industrial and agricultural revolutions in England began to show enormous profits for
many individuals, more and more investment took place in the slave trade. A new triangular
111
trade began, mainly centered in Liverpool, in which cotton was sent to West Africa, where it was
sold for slave. The slaves were then taken to the American South, where they were sold for raw
cotton which was taken back to Liverpool to be processed in the mills of Lancashire. The
business of cotton helped create hundreds of banks in England, including the giants Barclays and
Lloyds, and, after 1773, a booming stock exchange appeared. British slavers began taking Xhosa
(Bantu) slaves to Virginia plantations in 1719. By the 1750's, a whole new leisured class had
been created in England from profits gained mainly from island cotton, sugar and tobacco grown
with slave labor. At this time, English Quakers did not follow the practices of their Friends in the
American Colonies who excluded slave traders from their Society.
Perhaps the beginnings of public protest against the slave trade in England began in 1763 when
the badly beaten slave that Granville Sharp nursed back to health was kidnapped and sold (three
years later, none other than George Washington exchanged an unruly slave for rum). A turning
point in British toleration of slavery occurred in 1772 when James Somerset escaped from his
master. Britain's Lord Chief Justice William Murray ruled that "as soon as any slave sets foot in
England he becomes free."
The first motion to outlaw slavery in Britain and her colonies was heard in the Commons in
1776; it failed, perhaps due to pre-occupation of the House with the American War of
Independence. English Quakers were also very active in their denunciation of the trade. A speech
in the Commons by William Wilberforce in 1789 strongly condemned the practice of shipping
Africans to the West Indies, but insurrections in some of the islands prevented a motion from
being passed in 1781 that forbade the practice.
British cotton manufactures were also profiting greatly from slave labor in the American South
that gained enormous benefits from the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1792.
Though the US and Britain had agreed to cooperate in suppressing the slave trade in the Treaty
of Ghent (that ended the War of 1812), the new, speedy Baltimore clipper ships continued to
deliver cargoes of slaves.
In 1823, all the elements of the anti-slavery movement in England coalesced when William
Wilbeforce and Thomas Buxton formed an antislavery society in London. Prominent Welsh
reformer and factory owner Robert Owen also publicly advocated the abolition of slavery. In
1830, British authorities in the Bahamas declared that slaves from the wrecked schooner Comet
were free, despite American protests.
Sharp's rebellion in Jamaica took place in 1831, but a drop in sugar prices had made slavery
unprofitable on the island and news of the savage reprisals shocked British consciences.
Parliament finally ordered the abolition of slavery in the British colonies to take effect by August
1, 1834 (three days after the death of Wilberforce). England and its empire was at last free from
its terrible curse, During the same year, the Factory Act forbade the employment of children
under 9 and proscribed the number of hours children were to work in the textile mills.
Political Reform
Between the death of George III in 1820 and the accession of Victoria to the throne in 1837,
England was ruled first by the Prince Regent, during the dotage George of then under his own
rule as George IV ending in 1830 and by his Uncle, William IV from 1830 to 1837. There is not
much to say about George IV except that he suffered from a disastrous marriage and that he
exercised a fine artistic taste. During his reign, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace were
renovated and extended and under the architect John Nash, St. James' Park and Regent's Park
laid out, and the extravagant Royal Pavilion built at Brighton. When the Catholic Emancipation
Bill became law, George threatened to abdicate, only reluctantly agreeing to prevent civil war in
Ireland. George had no male children; his daughter had died in 1817, and his second brother was
childless. The throne thus went to his third brother, who became William IV who ruled from
1830-1837.
Progress in the Arts
The first half of the 18th century had given us the "Augustans," following the ideals of classical
Rome. Alexander Pope led the school that included Jonathan Swift, John Gay, Daniel Defoe,
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Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne and James Boswell; and the "common
sense" philosophy of Dr. Samuel Johnson. England produced the painters Gainsborough and
Reynolds and crrated a climate for musicians such as Handel to receive Royal patronage.
The transition was most apparent in the writings of philosopher David Hume "Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding," 1748; the historian Edward Gibbon "The Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire," 1776; and politician Edmund Burke "Reflections on the Revolution in
Francem" 1791. The new class of poets included William Cowper and Robert Burns. English
poets and painters, in their revolt against "common sense," began to follow the brilliant
explorations of poet and artist William Blake (1757-1827).
The brilliant landscape artist John Constable died the same year that Victoria became queen.
J.M.W. Turner was still alive. As members of the so-called Romantic Movement, they had been
part of an astonishing artistic revolution that accompanied the topsy-turvy develpments in
politics and the gradual displacement of the aristocracy by the middle class trading interests in
the seat of power. Wordsworth and Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and Byron all followed in rapid
succession bringing a new depth to English literature, changing it from one concerned primarily
with "reason" to one that we now call "romantic." Instinct and emotion took the place of the old
rationalism. The idealization of the "noble savage," could only have come about however, when
England's explorers and missionaries journeyed to new, and hitherto unknown lands
СРСП-24
: The Age of Empire, continued
Expansion of Empire: Australia
One result of the separation of the American colonies was that the British legal system lost one
of the places to which convicts could be transported (Canada's climate was too severe for
plantations and thus slave or convict labor). After considering the coasts of Africa, the British
government decided that the lands called Botany Bay would be suitable and in 1788, the first
shipload of 750 convicts arrived in that most inhospitable area of Australia.
Dutch sailors had landed on the coast of Australia in 1606, but they were driven off by natives. It
wasn't until 1770 that Captain James Cook explored the eastern coast of what was then called
"New Holland." Cook took possession of the island continent in the name of George III; he
named his landfall Botany Bay on account of the great variety of plants he found there. The
whole of Australia may have had no more than 250,000 natives at that time. There was lots of
room to accommodate British convicts, further shiploads of which caused the early settlement to
move to an area to be named Sydney, in the colony now named New South Wales.
It wasn't just land to resettle criminals that Britain needed. Both the agricultural and industrial
revolutions had contributed to an enormous growth in population. There just were not enough
jobs to go around, and as one historian has pointed out, in Ireland "there were neither enough
tenements nor enough potatoes." Following the peace of 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars,
there was a great increase in the population of the British Isles, so much so that a feeling of
alarm spread through government ranks.
A growing population which had hitherto been regarded as one of the strengths of the nation now
found itself looked on as something of a curse. There simply were too many people to feed (and
control). Increasing pauperism and distress, along with monstrously bad harvests, massive
unemployment and public debt, severely strained the limited resources available, and drastic
remedies were sought by the folks in Westminster.
Perhaps the easiest solution was emigration. In 1822, an article by James Mill on "Colonization"
in the "Encyclopedia Britannica" offered emigration as a remedy for over-population. It was
eagerly read and avidly discussed by M.P.'s such as Robert Horton, who spent quite a few years
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of his time in the House of Commons trying to convince his colleagues of the merits of his
emigration schemes. In the years 1823- 25, attempts were made to put his plans into practice,
especially because the Government wished to settle British people in new lands that could be
contested by other nationalities. Though most of the emigrants chosen for government-assisted
passages in these early years were Irish (one way to get rid of those troublesome Catholics)
many Scots were attracted by the offers of free land overseas.
Despite its reputation as a penal colony, in the very early years of the 19th century, the island
continent of Australia had more and more begun to appear as a practical proposition for
settlement. Australia offered an alternative to the vast wildernesses of loyalist Canada. Attitudes
in Parliament began to shift with the publication of Captain Alexander McConochie who
recommended that Britain look to the Pacific Ocean to expand its commerce. He particularly
advocated a settlement of New South Wales that would open up new markets as well as absorb
what he termed Scotland's "superabundant population." McConochie's "A Summary View" of
1818 gave the people of power in Scotland, especially the commercial interests, an awareness of
the potential awaiting them in Australia.
By 1815, the Blue Mountains had been crossed and the vast interior revealed, an interior suited
to sheep farming. The introduction of the merino sheep was to lay the foundation for the great
Australian wool industry. The native Aborigines were ignored, especially in Tasmania, where
they were hunted down and killed off for possession of their lands.
Thousands of convicts continued to arrive each year, and from 1820-60 new colonies were
established. These new colonies included : South Australia, Van Diemen's Land (later named
Tasmania); the Swan River Colony (later part of Western Australia); Victoria, transformed by
the discovery of gold at Ballarat and Bendigo and Queensland, created in 1859 out of New South
Wales. The rapid increase in the number of free settlers led to demands for some kind of selfgovernment as had been granted to Canada. A Parliamentary Committee condemned the convict
system and gradually each Australian colony banned their importation. In 1856 all four colonies
were granted constitutions which gave them responsible self-government; Queensland and
Western Australia soon followed suit.
New Zealand
In 1642 Dutch captain Abel Tasman discovered what he named Van Diemen's Land after the
governor general of the Dutch East Indies. Four months later, Tasman discovered the islands of
New Zealand. In 1769, Captain Cook arrived to charter the coasts and to discover that the
country consisted of two main islands. He reported that they were fertile and well-suited for
colonization. Gradual penetration by settlers, whalers, convicts and missionaries followed, and in
1813 the islands were proclaimed as dependencies of New South Wales under British protection.
Mainly due to missionary activity anxious to protect the native Maori population from
exploitation, in 1840 Captain William Hobson was sent out from London to negotiate with the
Maori chiefs for the cessation of sovereignty to the Crown.
There were many land disputes between the Maori and the white settlers, but under the
leadership of Sir George Grey, 1845-53, native lands and possessions received some kind of
protection. The Maori had banded together in the face of increasing immigration from Britain
and elsewhere, and for almost twelve years, a military police action against them eventually led
to their being granted full citizenship rights, including fair prices for their land and equal
treatment under the law. The Treaty of Waitingo was signed by many Maori chiefs, and though
some resentments linger among the Maori people, who number about 12 percent of the country's
population, it remains an important symbol for the equal partnership between the races that is the
foundation of New Zealand's national identity.
New Zealand particularly owes a great debt to John Mackenzie, who had left Ardross, Ross-shire
in 1860 to become a farmer in his new country. In Scotland he had developed a deep antagonism
towards the power of the landlords to dispossess small farmers, a phenomenon that was
destroying much of the traditional life of the Highlands. Witnessing the same kind of activity in
New Zealand, Mackenzie entered politics to prevent it from happening in his adopted land. He
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was elected to Parliament in 1881 as a Liberal, becoming Minister of Lands and Immigration in
1891 under Prime Minister John Ballance, equally committed to protecting the small farmers
against encroachment by the large landowners.
In 1892, Mackenzie won passage of the Lands for Settlement Act, opening up Crown land for
leasing. An amendment in 1894 compelled the owners of large estates to sell parts of their lands.
The same year, the Advances to Settlers Act greatly expanded the supply of credit available for
small farmers. He also sponsored a plan to use the unemployed to clear and then lease land
holdings. In addition to his sponsorship of legislation to aid the small farmers and break up the
large estates (something that had never been achieved in his native Scotland), Mackenzie used
his political clout to promote scientific methods of agriculture. Also to his credit was the laying
of the foundation of the New Zealand ministry of agriculture. There were many more Scots of
influence in the islands; they did much to make the country prosperous, as well as keeping it
closely tied with and proud of its association with, Great Britain.
In l880, New Zealand began to export huge quantities of frozen mutton and lamb to Britain. By
l902, this process began to flood the English market. Alas, Scots settlers stripped millions of
acres of lush, sub-tropical forests to create their sheep pastures, and the ruinous effects of the
subsequent soil erosion are still very much in evidence.
Canada
Captain James Cook had made three exploratory voyages to the West Coast of Canada between
1768 and 178l. Because the Chinese were very interested receiving fur in exchange for the tea,
silks and porcelain in so much demand in Europe, the lucrative fur trade beckoned further
English interest. In 1788, a group of English traders settled on Vancouver Island (discovered by
Cook 10 years before). Spain still claimed the whole West Coast of America up to the boundary
of what is now Alaska, but after a confrontation at Vancouver between the two countries,
England presented an ultimatum to the Spanish whose lack of allies, and an effective navy,
forced them to accept its terms. The Spanish recognition of British trading and fishing rights in
the area opened the way for the establishment of British Columbia and the creation of a British
North America stretching from ocean to ocean. There still remained the thorny question of the
borders with the United States.
Many thousands of Empire loyalists left the United States after its independence to settle in
Canada, mainly in the eastern Maritime Provinces. Many of the kilted soldiers who conquered
Quebec for Britain had been Jacobites and followers of Prince Charles Edward. It has been
suggested that their victory at Quebec was sweet revenge for France's general indifference to and
failure to help the Jacobite cause.
Perhaps the Canadian province most closely connected with Scotland is Nova Scotia New
Scotland. The land had been discovered by John Cabot in 1497 and claimed for Britain. The vast
territory of Acadia was seized by Captain Argall in the name of James VI of Scotland (James I of
England), in 1613. Part of this lovely land became the first permanent North American
settlement north of Florida when Scotsman Sir William Alexander, friend of the king, was
granted a charter in 1621. In his book describing the colony, Sir William deplored the ancient
proclivity of Scotsmen to expend their energies in foreign wars and encouraged them instead, to
send swarms of emigrants "like bees" to New Scotland. Over 300 years later, seven eighths of its
people acknowledge British ancestry, mainly Scottish.
The West was still unknown territory. In 1809, Welsh-born fur trader David Thompson surveyed
and mapped more than 1 million square miles of territory between Lake Superior and the Pacific.
The War of 1812 seems to have begun over the impressment of US seamen, but frontiersmen on
both sides were intent on territorial gains in many disputed areas.
The naval battles on Lake Erie showed only too well US interest north of the established borders.
The Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1817 limited US and British naval forces on the Great Lakes. One
year later, the US-Canadian border was established by a convention, making the 49th parallel the
boundary to the Rockies while Thompson continued his survey. The two countries agreed to a
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joint occupation of the Northwest Territories for a 10-year period. The treaty was extended in
1828 for an indefinite period.
Back east however, a French Canadian rebellion against British rule, led by Papineau and
Mackenzie took place in 1837. It was crushed after some desultory skirmishes. In 1839, in his
Report on the Affairs of British North America, the Earl of Durham proposed a union of Upper
and Lower Canada and the granting of self-government. Durham argued for putting the
government of Canada into the hands of the Canadians. The Union Act was passed in July, 1840.
Two years later, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty finalized the Maine-Canadian border.
Still in dispute was the boundary of the Oregon Territory, which received thousands of American
immigrants after John Fremont mapped the Oregon Trail guided by Kit Carson. Other settlers
from the US arrived in the Columbia River Valley, claimed by Britain. In 1846, the Oregon
Treaty granted land south of the 49th parallel to the US, thus extending the frontier to the Pacific
and granting British Columbia and Vancouver to Britain.
In 1847, Lord Elgin was made Governor of the newly united colony of Canada. By the 1860's,
the fear of economic and political subordination to the US stimulated the movement to combine
the eastern Maritime Provinces to the rest of Canada. In 1867 the British North America Act
united Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the Dominion of Canada with its
capital at Ottawa, first settled in 1827.
A Scots-Canadian, John Alexander Macdonald, who had led the federation movement became
the first premier. Within six years, the Dominion was joined by Manitoba, British Columbia and
Prince Edward Island (Newfoundland joined in 1949). The Canadian Pacific Railway begun in
1880 then became a crucial link in the chain of confederation, making it possible for the addition
of the two prairie provinces to join in 1905, Alberta and Saskatchewan. In June, 1880, the
anthem "Oh Canada" was sung for the first time in Quebec; it received official English lyrics in
1908.
Other Maritime Provinces were also heavily influenced by Scottish settlers. Prince Edward
Island was captured from the French by Lord Rollo, a Scottish Peer, in 1758 and parceled out
among a number of landed proprietors, including many Scots. One was John Macdonald of
Glenaladale, who conceived the idea of sending Highlanders out to Nova Scotia on a grand scale
after Culloden.
New Brunswick also became the home for many Scots. In 1761, Fort Frederick was garrisoned
by a Highland regiment. The surrounding lands surveyed by Captain Bruce in 1762 attracted
many Scotch traders when William Davidson of Caithness arrived to settle two years later. Their
numbers were swelled by the arrival of thousands of loyalists of Scottish origin, both during and
after the American Revolution. A continual influx of immigrants from Scotland and Ulster meant
that by 1843, there were over 30,000 Scots in New Brunswick.
A large group of Scots chiefly from Ross-shire arrived in 1802 on the Nephton to settle in the
Quebec province. Many of their descendents have become prominent in the business, financial
and religious activities of Montreal ever since. The great centre of the Scottish Loyalists,
however, was not in Quebec, but in Upper Canada, the Glengarry Settlement in what is now
Ontario. Here, in what was then wilderness, many of the early settlers had come from Tryon
County in New York State. They were joined by many Highlanders during the Revolution, and
after the War had ended, by a whole regiment of the "King's Royals."
Unemployment and suffering that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars caused the British
government to reverse its former policies and to actively encourage emigration. In 1815, three
loaded transports thus set sail from Greenock for Upper Canada: the Atlas, the Baptiste Merchant
and the Borothy. After the end of the War of 1812, they were joined by many soldiers from the
disbanded regiments. In 1816, further arrivals from Ulster helped swell the Scottish element in
what was at first a military settlement. Many Perth families became prominent in both state and
national governments.
The list of Scots who influenced Canada's history is indeed a long one. We can only mention a
few more who contributed in so many different areas. Explorer Alexander Mackenzie completed
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the first known transcontinental crossing of America north of Mexico. John Sandfield
Macdonald (1812-72) became Prime Minister of the province of Canada in 1862 and the first
Prime Minister of Canada in 1867. Sir John Macdonald (1815-91), who emigrated in 1820,
became the first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada, leading the country through its
period of early growth. Under his leadership, the dominion expanded to include Manitoba,
British Columbia and Prince Edward Island. Sir Richard McBride (1870-1917) was Premier of
British Columbia from 1903 to 1915, where he introduced the two-party system of government
and worked tirelessly on behalf of the extension of the railroad.
The list seems endless. Immigrant Alexander Mackenzie was the first Liberal Prime Minister of
Canada (1873-78). Another Scot, William Lyon Mackenzie, who led the revolt in Upper Canada
against the Canadian government in 1858, became a symbol of Canadian radicalism. His
rebellion dramatized the need for a reform of the country's outmoded constitution and led to the
1841 Confederation of Canadian provinces.
СРСП-25
. The Age of Empire, continued
British India
In India, Robert Clive had defeated pro-French forces at Arcot in 1751 thus helping his East
India Company to monopolize appointments, finances, land and power. The British victory led to
the withdrawal of the French East India Company. Then, six years later, faced with native
opposition, opportunist Clive defeated the local Nabob at Plassey to become virtual ruler of
Bengal and opened up much of the country to further exploitation and control by the East India
Company. When Clive was recalled to England, Warren Hastings took over to strengthen British
interests in India and to establish a basic pattern of government that remained virtually
unchanged for 100 years. Hastings was impeached by Parliament for enriching himself unduly in
India. His trial, in which he refused to admit his mistakes, was closely studied in January 1999
by members of the US Senate in their own impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.
India was regarded as the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire; over two thirds of the vast
sub-continent was ruled by the East India Company. Its finances and its troops were used to
protect British interests, even overthrowing native Indian princes. Much of the country, however,
was chafed under English practices, there were simply too many differences in social and
religious customs between the two countries. In 1857, simmering discontent flared into a great
mutiny, when sections of the army of Bengal attacked British settlers.
After atrocities on both sides, the revolt was finally crushed by November 1858, the majority of
Indians, having remained loyal. The British government then took over the administration of
India from the East India Company and the British Governor General became the Viceroy of
India to represent the Crown. A proclamation from the Queen then ensured the Indian people
that their religious practices and customs would not be interfered with, that the titles of their
Indian princes would be recognized and that in the future they would be able to participate in the
government of their country.
At the same time, a network of roads, railroads and telegraphs (in addition to the ubiquitous civil
servant) helped unite the sprawling subcontinent, and an educated, English speaking elite
emerged to further westernize its peoples. Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India in
1877 by Prime Minister Disraeli. India did not gain its independence until after the Second
World War when it fought alongside other countries of the British Empire.
South Africa
South Africa came to the attention of Europeans when a Dutch ship, Haarlem, broke up at Table
Bay in 1648 and the survivors, back in Holland, urged authorities to establish a settlement for
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provisioning their East India fleets. In 1652, a small group of Dutch settlers founded Cape Town.
In 1815, Britain gained its long-desired "half-way house" on the sea route to India when the
Dutch ceded the Cape of Good Hope. The British arrived in 1820 when the Albany settlers
founded Grahamstown in the eastern coastal region. By 1826, Britain's Cape Colony had
extended its borders to the Orange River. In 1834, Xhosa tribesmen revolted against Dutch
encroachments on their lands but were defeated. The seeds of later conflict, however, involving
British, Dutch and native Africans were sown.
Soon after Britain abolished slavery in its Empire in 1834, Dutch cattlemen in South Africa
began their great Trek north and east of the Orange Rivers. In the next two years, some 10,000
Boers (Dutch colonists) moved to new lands beyond the Vaal River. They were to found Natal,
Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In 1838, they were forced to defeat the Zulu at the Battle of
Blood River in Natal. Britain then repulsed the Boers and made Natal a British colony in the
pretense of protecting the natives. In 1854, the British withdrew from lands north of the Orange
River and the Boers seized the Orange Free State. In 1856, Britain made Natal a Crown colony;
and the Boers established the South African Republic (Transvaal) with Pretoria as its capital.
Events came to a head between Boers and Brits when diamonds were discovered in the Orange
Free State. The British disregarded Boer claims to the territory, annexing the district to Cape
Colony in 1871. Six years later, Britain annexed the South African Republic in violation of the
Sand River Convention of 1852 that recognized the independence of the Transvaal. The Boers
demanded a restoration of their independence and fully expected it from British Prime Minister
Gladstone, always concerned with doing what was right and moral. His slowness, however, in
getting a reluctant Parliament to act led to the Boers taking up arms. In December 1880 a Boer
Republic independent of Britain's Cape Colony was proclaimed by Paul Kruger. After a British
defeat at Majuba Hill a year later, the Treaty of Pretoria gave independence to the Boer Republic
but under British suzerainty.
When gold was discovered in the Transvaal in 1886, the drive to annex the Boer republics began
in earnest. Cecil Rhodes (who had founded the De Beers Mining Corporation in 1880) was
determined that the riches being discovered in South Africa were not going to the Boer farmers.
Rhodes dreamed of extending British rule in Africa, building a railroad from the Cape to Cairo
but the Boers were in the way, controlling the key areas of the Transvaal and the Orange Free
State. Using his great wealth, amassed in the diamond and gold fields, Rhodes with other
imperialists established British colonies to the north of the Boer territories. Both Northern and
Southern Rhodesia (settled by English workers for Rhodes's British South Africa Company who
founded Salisbury in 1890) were granted charters by London.
The Outsiders (Uitlanders, who flocked to the gold fields soon began to outnumber the Boers
(sometimes called Afrikaners), who took retaliatory measures which included excessive laws
against the newcomers that led to Rhodes intervening in the abortive "Jameson Raid," late in
1895. When Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain tried to get Kruger to accept British
supremacy, the attempt ended in yet another humiliation for his government. War began in 1899
as a result of British diplomatic pressure and a military build up on the borders of the Transvaal.
The highly mobile guerrilla units of the Boers were immediately successful in defeating much
larger units of the British Army. Their big error, and one that may have cost them the war, was
not to invade Natal, but to lay siege to a large British force penned up in Ladysmith, an error
they repeated in the sieges of Kimberley and Mafeking (of Baden-Powell fame). Yet
overwhelming Boer victories occurred when British commander Redvers Buller split up his
forces.
Victory for Britain only came when Buller's replacement, Lord Roberts took the war into the
enemy heartland, putting the Boers on the defensive. The capture of Bloemfontein and Pretoria
effectively ended the gallant efforts of the Transvaal Field Army of the Boers, so successful in
small engagements but heavily outgunned an out numbered in larger battles. Kruger went into
exile and the two Boer republics were annexed to the British crown in 1900.
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Yet the war dragged on. Under skilful leaders such as de Wet, Botha and Smuts, the Boers
utilized commandos to strike at British lines of communication in determined efforts to fight to
the last for their independence. The British resorted to a scorched earth policy to deny the
Afrikaners food and supplies, burning their farms and crops and removing masses of farming
families to concentration camps. Losses to attrition and demands from Liberals in the
government at Westminster to stop the barbarism led to negotiations and the Peace of
Vereenigning in May 1902. The Boers accepted British sovereignty with a promise of future
self-government.
The war was costly for both sides, but especially the British. Deaths from disease greatly
outnumbered those from bullets, and a series of defeats showed only too clearly the deficiencies
in leadership, operational planning, training, equipping and supplying of troops that had been so
evident in the Crimean War. The red jackets of English soldiers had made them easy targets for
Boer marksmen on the high Veldt, and their lack of knowledge of how to survive on the land
was to lead Baden-Powell to found the Boy Scout movement primarily as a form of early
outdoor military training for youths born and bred in the unhealthy cities spawned by the
industrial revolution.
Further Expansion of Empire
Britain's rise to a world power meant that she found interests everywhere. Not only was she now
head of the self-governing colonies, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand (mostly settled by
British newcomers in addition to the relatively tiny native populations); but also the vast Empire
of India and a veritable host of dependent territories all over the world's oceans. Most of these
had been acquired somehow to protect the merchants and traders of England, or areas in which
their missionaries and explorers (mostly Scots such as self-promoting David Livingstone or
English brave hearts such as Richard Burton and John Speke) had established their outposts.
Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister in 1874 with the idea of expanding the Empire and
taking up the "White Man's Burden" (as Rudyard Kipling described it) to not only create trade
and bring profit, but also to spread British ideas of democracy and law, as well as the Christian
(and Protestant) religion. The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, offered a 5,000 mile shortcut from
Britain to India and the east, to Australia and New Zealand and Disraeli persuaded his
government to buy the khedive of Egypt's majority shares with a loan from the Rothschild
banking house.
Because of Britain's control of Egypt it got involved in the war against the Mahdi, preaching a
holy war in the Sudan (a dependency of Egypt), and the defeat of General Gordon at Khartoum.
It was also Disraeli who backed British military intervention in the Transvaal in 1877, in the
Zulu War two years later and in the ill-fated attempt to support the ruler of Afghanistan against
Russia in 1878.
Britain had become involved in Afghanistan, that graveyard of so many foreign troops, when the
expansion of Russian power in the Near and Middle East in the 1820's and 30's alarmed the East
India Company. An attempt by the British government to control the mountainous land in 1839
by placing a pretender on the Afghan throne proved a complete disaster. A whole British army
was destroyed, the puppet ruler assassinated and the British envoys murdered. Not much was
learned from the experience.
In a further attempt to control the northwest approaches to India, another British invasion against
the legitimate ruler (considered too friendly to Russia) took place in 1880 under Gladstone's
government. The murder of the British Resident in Kabul brought another British force to
remedy the situation under General Roberts. It managed to extricate itself after dealing with rival
claimants to the throne. The Northwest frontier between the Punjab and Afghanistan was finally
drawn up in 1901 under the British viceroy in India, Lord Curzon.
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СРСП-26
The Age of Empire, continued
1901: The End of an Era
In 1897, Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee. She died in 1901. Britain had
undergone enormous changes in the 60 years of her reign. It had become the workshop of the
world, yet, to many of its inhabitants, the days of prosperity and optimism were over, the future
was uncertain. Commerce was flourishing, industrial productivity was booming, exports were
soaring, the nation led the world in manufacturing, the Empire had expanded across the globe.
Yet there were many cracks in the wall and skeletons in the closet.
The great movement in population from the countryside to the towns and the urban squalor and
poverty it created has been well-documented by such writers as Charles Dickens. Not even the
Royal family could escape the dreaded cholera, rampant in London due to its tainted water
supplies. Victoria's uncle, William IV's had two daughters die in infancy and disease was
rampant in the squalid slums of the rapidly growing cities and manufacturing towns.
The constant refusal of landlords to improve their properties, install proper sanitary facilities and
relieve the burden of high rents was matched by the indifference of the factory and mine owners
to the terrible working conditions of those they employed. Those who did care about their
workers, such as Robert Owen, were few and far between. The government was forced to step in;
only law could change the intolerable conditions.
Reforms had tentatively begun under the Tory Party, which dominated in Parliament from 1812
to 1827 and under the dynamic Robert Peel as Home Office Minister. Peel reformed the criminal
code, abolished the death penalty for over 100 offences, improved prison conditions and created
the London Police force, the so-called "Bobbies."
It was only a beginning. Reforms were greatly needed in every sector of British society. Not
everyone had benefited from the improvements in agriculture and industry. Increasing enclosures
of land had thrown hundreds of thousands of small landowners onto the mercy of the Parish or
drawn them into the fast-growing cities to replenish the stock of poor and unemployed. Lord
Byron, a hereditary peer in the House of Lords was not the only one to speak out against the
evils of industrialization. The poor had no representation in Parliament, for the system had long
ago failed to represent anyone except a small privileged class. It was time for major changes.
In 1832, the Duke also had to acquiesce in the passing of the great Reform Bill of 1832 that,
while doing nothing for the poorer classes, at long last recognized the right of the new
manufacturing magnates and the middle-classes to govern England. It was a right long overdue,
for the manufacturers and merchants had long been the chief factors in the economic life (and
success) of England. Their agitation was their demand to be admitted into the elite of the ruling
set. As the first formal change in electoral law, however, since an Act of 1430, it heralded further
inevitable changes in the relationship between the old aristocratic oligarchy and the new men
from the boroughs and manufacturing towns.
The British working classes were still without representation in Parliament: they turned to
Chartism to redress their grievances. Early attempts at forming workers' unions had failed
miserably, their leaders denounced as "gin-swilling degenerates" and their members expelled
from their work places. The workers then turned to violence, forming groups such as the "Scotch
Cattle" that destroyed property and threatened workers. The great depression of 1829, with its
massive unemployment and wage cuts led to the great Merthyr Rising in South Wales, now
heavily industrialized and influenced by many of its Irish immigrants. Order was brought into the
area by the military and punishment was severe. Dic Penderyn was hanged for wounding a
soldier, becoming a martyr for the Welsh workers.
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The Chartists now began to recruit in earnest. The movement was named after the radical
London reformer William Levett, who drafted a bill known as "The People's Charter" in May
1838. The Chartists hoped to bring about a democratic parliament and an enfranchised working
class. They staged demonstrations in many towns and when the government refused to consider
the six points of the Charter presented in June 1839 took to arms. The biggest demonstration
took place in South Wales, at Newport, where thousands of marchers, coming into the town in
columns from the coal-mining valleys, were shattered by well-directed volleys from a body of
troops (chiefly recruited in Ireland) stationed in the Westgate Hotel.
The repeal of the infamous Corn Laws in 1846 and the consequent availability of cheap bread
meant that people were less inclined to revolution. The Chartist Movement, faced with the might
of the British military and a recalcitrant government, was fading by the late 1850's. In 1857 an
Act declared that property qualifications were no longer necessary for a seat in Parliament, and
the first great democratizing point of the Charter had been conceded by the government.
Not to be overlooked, was the introduction of canned foods, created for the Royal Navy, but sold
commercially by the London firm of Donkin-Hall in 1814 that eventually helped alleviate
shortages caused by bad harvests (the industry took advantage of the vacuum pan recently
invented by Edward Howard). In 1867, the Great Reform Bill finally ended the Chartist
Movement, for in that year, nearly one million voters were added to the register, nearly doubling
the electorate. Forty-five new seats were created, and the vote given to many working men as
well as tenants of small farms. From henceforth, governments had to heed the voice of the
middle and lower classes; its resources had to be used to benefit all of society, not just the
privileged few, and the State came to play a leading part in the lives of Britain's citizens.
The Continuing Problem of Ireland
One of the major cracks in Britain's armor was Ireland, a country so near and yet so far. A
country that remained an enigma to most Britons, unable to understand the depth of nationalist
(and Catholic) feeling that kept their neighboring island out of the mainstream of the Empire in
so many ways. Even the revolutionary effects of the coming of industry to Britain had little
effect upon Ireland, which remained rural and agricultural. Anglo-Irish relations had been bitter
ever since the ruthless policies of Cromwell. The Ulster Plantations of James I, and the failure of
the Jacobite rebellions had not helped matters. In 1791 Wolfe Tone and others established The
Society of United Irishmen to follow the lead of the Americans to agitate for independence from
Britain. A French fleet set sail for Ireland in December, 1793 to aid the Irish rebels. A mighty
storm dispersed the ships and no invasion took place, but the French tried again in 1795, after the
Battle of Vinegar Hill had broken Irish resistance to British rule. Once again, however, they were
defeated; this time by troops under Cornwallis.
On January 1, 1801, the Act of Union of 1801 created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, establishing one single Parliament. Primarily due to the obstinacy of George III, who did
not wish to give full emancipation to Irish Catholics, the union had little chance of success.
Catholics could vote in elections, but only for Protestant candidates, no Catholic could be a
Member of Parliament, nor become a minister or servant of the Crown. The problem could not
be continually put on the back burner by the Parliament in London; the work of Daniel
O'Connell saw to that.
O'Connell gave voice to the political aspirations of the Irish people. In 1823, he founded the
Catholic Association, to provide the funds for a national movement, and in 1823 a Catholic
Relief Bill was passed by the Commons. Its rejection by the Lords, however, meant further
agitation by O'Connell who returned unopposed from County Clare, and in 1829, the Catholic
Emancipation Bill was pushed through Parliament by the Duke of Wellington over strong Tory
opposition. The Bill opened up the right to sit in Parliament and to hold any public office (with
few exceptions) to Catholics.
The Act settled one grievance, but it did nothing to settle the major one: that of the unpopular
Union of 1801. O'Connell wanted nothing less than the restoration of an Irish Parliament.
Despite the Irishman's eloquent oratory and strong support in Parliament, however, Robert Peel
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refused to budge on the question, and in time-honored fashion, sent troops to Ireland to quell
disturbances. O'Connell's activities had him convicted for conspiracy, but the verdict was
reversed on appeal. His influence waning, he died in 1847. Meanwhile, Peel's proposals to
alleviate the problems in Ireland, were met with hostility from both Protestants and Catholics
alike. A Bill introduced in 1845 to give Irish tenants the right to compensation for improvements
to their holdings was opposed in Parliament. The Great Famine prevented its implementation for
over thirty years.
There had been many warnings of the problems that could result for the Irish from their reliance
on a single food crop. Potatoes had come to their country in 1586, planted on his estate near
Cork by Sir Walter Raleigh. They seemed to be an admirable food to supplant wheat, so
dependent upon the weather. They were easily grown, easily stored, easily cooked. In 1770, they
were sold publicly in London. In less than one hundred years, their value as a food source had
helped fuel a population increase in many parts of Europe but especially in Ireland, an increase
that was most dramatic after 1800. By 1841, there were almost eight and a half million people in
Ireland depending upon potatoes, but as early as 1830 William Cobbett had warned of over
reliance on the crop.
In 1845, over one half the Irish potato crop, mostly grown on nearly 2 million acres in spadecultivated plots of less than one acre, was lost to a fungus. The harvest failed, and the peasants
saw their winter food supplies go to rot. A greater tragedy came with the second failure a year
later. The British government did very little; it believed that economic forces must work
themselves out with as little interference as possible and threw the burden of relief onto the local
Irish Poor Law authorities. The repeal of the Corn Laws (passed to aid the British farmer) in
1846 did practically nothing to solve the problem.
For the majority of the Irish, the answer was starvation or emigration, and between 1848 and
1851 over a million left for the United States, taking with them their resentment of the British
government and its feeble attempts to solve the mass starvation in Ireland. Unlike the Scots,
bereft of their lands in the Great Clearances, they did not remain loyal to the Empire. Meanwhile,
the "Problem of Ireland" intensified for successive British governments during the second half of
the century.
In the 1860's a new force entered Irish politics, the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, founded in
the USA, that became known as the Fenians. Its aims went a lot further than those of O'Connell,
for it sought nothing less than complete separation from Britain and the setting up of an
independent republic. It also promoted violence as a means to achieve its aims. In 1868,
Gladstone promised to "pacify Ireland," and began a program of moderate reforms including the
disestablishment of the Protestant Church of Ireland. In 1870, Gladstone enacted a Land Act to
prevent eviction of tenants (except for non-payment of rent), and to give compensation for the
improvements made to land or property. The only problem was that landlords consequently
raised their rents (and could thus have an excuse for evictions). The Prime Minister responded to
the resulting violence by the Coercion Acts that further antagonized the poor Irish. Gladstone's
desire to give the Irish Catholics their own university was defeated by a narrow margin in
Parliament.
Disraeli was not married to a Welsh girl as was Gladstone; he had less sympathy to the people of
Ireland. During his 1874-80 ministry, the Irish Home Rule League was founded, to demand
repeal of the Union of 1801 and the restoration of an Irish Parliament at Dublin. It was supported
by 59 Home-Rulers elected to the Commons in 1874. When Parnell took over the reigns, the
League became a powerful political force. In 1879, another movement began: the Irish National
Land League was founded by Michael Davin to boycott landlords and to work for ownership of
all Irish land by Irish peasant farmers. Like the Home Rule League, the INLL was backed by
huge sums of money raised in the US by Fenian societies.
Between 1880 and 1895, at the height of its imperial powers, Britain suffered the humiliation of
having four out of six governments being defeated as a direct result of Irish affairs. Parnells'
power block of 80 or so Irish M.P.'s was a crucial factor. Determined to press for Home Rule for
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Ireland, their constant side switching in an attempt gain their aims led to the Irish Home Rule
Crisis of 1886 which split the Liberal Party in two and kept the Conservatives in power.
Unfortunately, despite their passage of a Land Purchase Act in 1891, the government
implemented strict measures to try to improve law and order in Ireland, all of which were
vigorously opposed by Parnell. After Parnell's disgrace in 1891 (over an affair with a divorcee),
Gladstone continued to press for a Home Rule Bill. His final attempt passed the Commons in
1893 but was rejected by the stubborn, myopic House of Lords. Ireland's problems, and the
inability of the English government to deal with them continued well into the next century, one
in which the accomplishments of Britain began to be matched by other countries, and one in
which its mighty empire disintegrated.
СРСП-27
: England in the 20th Century
Changes in Empire and at Home
The popular,aged Victoria was succeeded by Edward VII, who reigned for nine years (1901-10).
The jovial, popular, avuncular Prince of Wales had waited a long time to accede to the throne.
Known as Edward the Peacemaker for his diplomacy in Europe, he used his knowledge of
French, Spanish, Italian and German to good advantage. Matters seemed fine in the island
kingdom of Britain, feeling secure as the head of the largest empire the world had ever known.
Yet the image of splendid and carefree easy living portrayed by the King was in direct contrast to
the growing forces of discontent and resentment felt by too many members of British society.
England in the Edwardian Age existed in a twilight zone; the balance of power in so many areas
was shifting in a Europe in which the decisive factor was the rise of a united Germany, and in a
world in which the United States would soon dominate. To prepare for the future, one politician,
Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister 1902-5, saw that Britain needed to advance its educational
system and to strengthen its defenses. His Education Bill of 1902 abolished the School Boards
and placed primary, technical and secondary education under the control of local authorities.
This helped to create an "education ladder" by which abler children were able to win
scholarships to enter the secondary grammar schools (the mis-named Public Schools continued
as private enclaves for the rich and very rich). The Civil Service was thus able to find itself
enriched by a steady stream of educated, qualified young men (and later young women).
Balfour made effective the Committee of Imperial Defence to carry out the reforms made
necessary after the humiliations of the Boer War. The Committee also improved Britain's naval
defenses; and under John Fisher, the Admiralty began building the Dreadnought a new type of
heavily-armed warship. To further meet the threat from the new German fleet, he also
concentrated the Royal Navy in home waters instead of having it dispersed all over the world.
Balfour, however, was completely unable to prevent the inevitable. Though many historians see
the death of King Edward as marking the dividing line between the security and stability of the
19th century and the uncertainties of the twentieth, there had been ominous warnings before
1910.
In Wales, conditions in the tin plate industry had been severely depressed by the 1891 McKinley
Tariff of the United States; the deplorable conditions endured by coal miners led to the creation
of a new force in British politics: the trade union. There had been many earlier attempts to form
unions, mostly unsuccessful because of determined resistance from the mine and factory owners.
Workers had been fired for trying to form unions; their leaders were once denounced by the
leading Welsh newspaper as "gin-swilling degenerates." In 1834, when Robert Owen had
attempted to improve factory conditions and the lives of the workers through his Grand National
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Consolidated Trade Union, six English farm laborers were sentenced to deportation for secretly
forming a branch of the GNCTU (they were the famous Tolpuddle Martyrs).
In Lancashire, in 1869, the formation of the Amalgamated Association of Miners led to fierce
resistance from the coal owners and was forced to disband. A united front against the unionists
was then forged by the formation of the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners
Association in which 85 companies owned over 200 mines. The workers persisted in their
attempts to form unions, however, and in 1877 the Cambrian Miners Association began in the
Rhondda Valley under the inspired leadership of William Abraham (Mabon). Abraham was
elected Lib-Lab M.P. for Rhondda in 1885 and kept the peace between owners and miners for
twenty years. (The Lib-Labs represented an informal agreement with local Liberal organizations
to run a number of trade union candidates, rather than a party of organized labor.)
In 1888, a successful strike of girls in the sweated trade of match-box making occurred. One year
later the Gas Workers Union secured a reduction from twelve to eight hours in their working
day. A strike by London Dock workers the same year was equally successful. Their disciplined
behavior won them widespread support When their demands were finally conceded, the Dockers
Union gave considerable stimulus to recruiting for other trade unions, who were quick to see the
strike as a means to solve their grievances.
The Fabian Movement began in 1884, its composition of middle-class intellectuals (including
dramatist and critic George Bernard Shaw) giving it considerable weight as an instrument in
bringing forth political and social reform. As a response to poor working conditions, the
Independent Labour Party was formed in 1893. Six years later the Miner's Federation of Great
Britain began at Newport, South Wales. The Federation argued for the creation of a Board of
Arbitration to replace the infamous sliding scale and the restriction of the work day to eight
hours (also that year the Women's Social and Political Union was formed by Emmeline
Pankhurst with the goal of achieving voting rights for women. In 1918, women over thirty were
granted the right to vote, following their efforts as factory workers taking the places of men
called up for the military).
When judgement was given in favor of the owners and against the striking workers in the Taff
Vale Railway Company dispute of 1900, the huge costs levied against the union practically
ensured the creation of a new party in British politics. The unions saw clearly that they had to
have legislation to guarantee their rights, and thus they needed representation in Parliament. The
Labour Representative Committee answered their needs: in 1906, it became known as the
Labour Party, but it took many years before it could muster enough strength to offer a worthy
challenge to the Liberal and the Conservative Parties.
George V (1910-1936)
The new King, George was the second son of Edward VII and Queen Alexander, Prince Albert
Victor had died in 1892. It was George who changed his family name from the German SaxeCoburg-Gotha to that of the English Windsor. With his wife Mary, he did much to continue the
popularity of the monarchy. They were helped enormously by the advent of the BBC in 1922
which probably did more to perpetuate the national sense of common identity than any other
factor save war. In 1934, George began his broadcasts to Britain and the Empire. Radio,
newspapers (and later television) all added to the mystique and prestige of the royal family when
so much more was in a state of flux, and old traditions were being challenged everywhere.
The pre-War years saw major changes in England's domestic policies. The question of tariff
reform divided the Conservatives. One group wished to use the tariff to protect British industries
and boost inter-imperial trade and co-operation; the other, fearing the social and political
consequences that higher food prices would bring as a result of the tariff, was in favor of Free
Trade. A crisis occurred in 1906.
In that year, left-wing Liberal, Welshman David Lloyd George became Chancellor of the
Exchequer and pushed through Parliament his "People's Budget" that proposed a tax on the rich
to pay for reforms and the rebuilding of the Royal Navy. The rapid rise of such men as Lloyd
George from humble origins to high positions in the government showed only too clearly the
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changing nature of political life in the country, a change that the House of Lords was slow to
accept. The Upper House, packed with its hereditary peers, was particularly upset by what it
considered the socialistic and confiscatory nature of the budget and rejected it.
Two general elections were held to resolve the deadlock. The Liberals were able to win a
landslide victory and remained in power until the wartime coalition government was formed in
1915. In the interim, the Lords continued to reject the Budget, which finally passed in 1911 when
the Commons approved the Parliament Bill to limit the delaying power of the House of Lords.
From now on, the Lords could no longer reject bills outright and there was to be a general
election every five years (instead of seven).
The year 1911 saw the greatest industrial unrest in Britain's history. Nationwide strikes of dock
workers, railway men and miners brought the country to a standstill. The government was forced
to respond. The National Insurance Act was passed to ensure that the worker, the employer and
the government all contributed to a general fund to pay for free medical treatment, sick pay,
disability and maternity benefits. It also introduced a measure of unemployment benefits, free
meals for school children as well as periodic medical exams. Through the efforts of Winston
Churchill there had been the setting up of Labour Exchanges where the unemployed worker
could sign on for vacant jobs. Foundations were being laid for a veritable sea of change in the
way the state was to assume responsibility for the welfare of its citizens.
Many reforms took place in a veritable flood of "socialist experiment." The introduction of a
salary for M.P.'s allowed the entry of working class members to Parliament; the trade unions
were freed from the liability for strike damage and allowed to use their funds in politics. Hours
and conditions of labor were regulated, slum -clearances effected, eighty-three labor exchanges
set up, and old-age pensions inaugurated as the first installment of social security. All this cost a
great deal of money. it came from the pockets of the rich. They were further incensed by the
Home Rule Bill of 1912.
Irish M.P.'s had helped the Liberals gain power; they wanted their reward in Home Rule. To the
Conservatives, however, the idea of Britain splitting up (in the face of increasing German
hostility) seemed ludicrous, to be avoided at all costs. They were aided by the Protestant forces
of Ulster (most of Northern Ireland), equally alarmed at the prospect of being ruled from Dublin.
A major civil war loomed in Ireland, and the British Army regulars made it clear in the so-called
"mutiny" at the Curragh, that they would not fight against their brothers in Ulster. In 1914, the
Home Rule Bill was finally pushed through, but the outbreak of the Great War pushed
everything else aside; it was said that "the public had forgotten the Irish for the Belgians."
СРСП-28
: England in the 20th Century
World War I (1914-1918)
By the turn of the century, it had become increasingly apparent to many, both in and out of
government, that the possession of an Empire would not be enough to cure Britain's domestic
problems. Gladstone, in particular, had the wisdom (and the courage) to admit that though the
Empire was a duty and responsibility that could not be shrugged off, there could be little
advantage, and possibly only future problems, in expanding it. For him, in contrast to the
imperialist Disraeli, and later, the Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain, Britain's strength lay
in its own people, in their own land. Foreign adventures could only waste the nation's resources,
sorely needed to aid its own people. He had been proved right in the costly adventures in
Afghanistan, the Sudan and South Africa. (As a sideline, the poor physical condition of the
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British soldiers in South Africa during the fight against the Boer farmers, led Baden-Powell, who
had successfully defended Mafeking, to found the Boy Scout Movement in 1908.)
In the heady day of Empire, William Ewart Gladstone had believed in peace with justice. He
respected the rights of small nations to seek their own forms of government; hence his support of
Home Rule for Ireland. He died in 1898, four years after being defeated in Parliament. He had
relentlessly condemned the Conservative government's overseas policies. Sadly, though he
recognised what was going on in Ireland, he had failed to see that a genuine nationalist
movement had surfaced in Egypt, where Britain was forced to stay, once involved, until the
middle of the next century. He had noticed, however, that Germany's support of the Boer
farmers, in the way of arms and guns, boded ill for future relations between the two countries. A
new rivalry developed over their respective navies. More than one historian has pointed out that
the German navy was floated on a tide of Anglophobia.
It was thus that Britain's foreign policy, during the first few years of the new century, changed
drastically. Instead of the old cordiality towards Germany and fear of a combined France and
Russia, she now became friendly towards France and Russia and hostile to Germany. An AngloFrench agreement in 1904, mainly over their respective interests in Egypt and Morocco, alarmed
the Germans. The new Liberal government's Foreign Secretary, Lord Grey, had no intention of
dissolving its association with France (and with Japan and Russia, who were at war with one
another in 1905).
The question now arose of what would be Britain's response should Germany attack France over
a dispute concerning Morocco. The answer can be found in the summer maneuvers of the
English army that assumed Germany, not France, would be the enemy. Germany also felt
humiliated by the Treaty of Algeciras that temporarily settled the Morocco question, and felt
surrounded by hostile powers, a feeling that grew alarmingly after the 1906 Anglo-Russian
Entente. Its reply was to build up its navy, including the Dreadnought, a threat to England's longheld supremacy at sea. World War I broke out in August 1914, when Germany declared war on
Russia. Trouble in the Balkans precipitated the outbreak of hostilities, but they had been stewing
for a long time.
Perhaps the War came about as the result of a breakdown in the European diplomatic system -the bad judgment of a number of individual politicians. Perhaps it was inevitable -- the result of
the profound economic changes that had been at work that had caused a "structural failure" of
European society. In England, domestic problems, as much as the crisis in the Ottoman Empire,
had dictated foreign policy decisions. In any case, Britain was not willing to see Germany defeat
France again; nor did she want to lose her position as the world's leading power. The troubles
began in Bosnia.
Austria seized Bosnia in 1908; Italy then took Tripoli, Cyrenaicia and some islands to show that
Turkey could no longer defend what was left of her empire in Europe. Russia, Austria-Hungary,
and Germany were all hungry for spoils in the area. When Greece allied with Serbia and
Bulgaria (all satellites of Russia), to defeat the Turks, Austria became alarmed; her own empire
contained many Slavic peoples. Germany, too, feared Russian expansion in the Balkans. A
conference in London in 1913 failed to pacify the region, in which the late victorious Balkan
states were now quarrelling among themselves. Serbia's successes further alarmed empire of
Austria-Hungary.
With the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June, 1914, all hell broke loose. The
military chiefs of many nations were all ready to go to war. Historians have succinctly pointed
out that an inexorable military machine quickly overwhelmed the improvisations of diplomacy.
With the Kaiser's support, Austria declared war on Serbia. Germany declared war on Russia and
on France, creating a huge dilemma for Britain: should she give full military support to France
and her allies or to stay out of Europe altogether in a policy of complete neutrality. The latter
policy would have opened the door for Germany, however, and when that country violated the
neutrality of Belgium in August, Britain went to war on the side of France. The decision to aid
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Belgium, one of small-statured Lloyd George's "little 5-foot-5 nations," marked the beginning of
the end for his country's world dominance.
The length of the war, and its enormous toll on life and resources, was completely unpredicted.
A German plan for a rapid victory in the West was thwarted by the combined French-British
armies at the Marne. When the German offensive began down the North Sea coast of Belgium,
the battles at Ypres managed to stem their advance, but at heavy cost. The years of trench
warfare then began in a costly war of attrition with neither side gaining any real advantage.
At sea, the war produced one large-scale battle and a few smaller engagements. The action at
Jutland, despite British losses, resulted in the German fleet heading for home, allowing the Royal
Navy to continue to dominate the sea routes, to supply new fronts in the Eastern Mediterranean
(with limited successes), and to impose an economic blockade upon Germany and her allies. In
reply, the consequent German submarine campaign showed only too well the strengths of this
new kind of weapon. The sinking of the Lusitania off Kinsale Head, Ireland in May 1915,
however, had enormous consequences for the later stages of the war. In the meantime, in order to
aid rapidly weakening Russia, the allies decided to strike at Turkey and the rear of AustriaHungary by way of the Balkans.
Both Lloyd George and Winston Churchill argued for the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. The
campaign was designed to attack weaker spots of the enemy's front by combining military and
naval forces; to force Turkey to abandon her support of Germany, circumvent Bulgaria's entry
into the war, and bring Greece into the side of the allies. In the campaign, failure to co-ordinate
their activities, however, left great numbers of British, New Zealand and Australian troops
stranded on the Gallipoli Peninsular unable to break through the Turkish defenses. All the
objectives of the bold but totally mismanaged campaign were lost (much hostility resulted in the
attitude of Australia and New Zealand that is still evident today in their progress towards
republican status, despite lingering affection for the mother country). On the Western front,
allied losses also caused great concern.
The German attack at Ypres, where gas was used for the first time, and the failure of the British
counter-offensive, brought a government crisis in Britain. Lloyd George became minister of
Munitions and Arthur Henderson, Secretary of the Labour Party was admitted to the Cabinet, a
decision that clearly showed the growing importance of organized labour. A German offensive at
Verdun then blunted the allied plans for a simultaneous attack; and the Battle of the Somme
ended in disaster for the allies, who lost around 600,000 men in futile attacks against a firmly
entrenched enemy. At the same time, the Russian state began to show signs of collapse.
In late December, 1916, Lloyd George took charge of a coalition ministry in which he showed
the energy and capacity for getting things done in a time of great crisis. The conduct of the war,
the losses incurred, and the difficulties in Ireland (where the brutal suppression of the Easter
Rising almost certainly turned that nation against Britain when a more just solution may have
kept the nation loyal to the Crown), needed drastic measures. Military deadlock, the successful
U-boat offensive, as well as the onset of revolution in Russia, provided a new test of character of
the British people.
The introduction of an organized convoy system put a huge dent in the success rate of the
German submarines in sinking allied supply ships. British efforts were rewarded by the entry of
the United States into the War in April, 1917. The great French offensive early 1917 failed
hopelessly. It was followed by an equal failure of Haig's offensive in Flanders and the misery of
the mud at Passchendaele Ridge. The Italians were then overwhelmed by the German-Austrian
army at Caporetto before stabilizing their line with help from British and French troops. To make
matter worse for the allies, the new Russian revolutionary government made peace with
Germany, freeing nearly fifty German divisions for service on the Western front.
Things then began to change. German intrigue with Mexico (still simmering over the loss of
much of its territory to its powerful northern neighbor) along with the unrestricted submarine
warfare of 1917 brought the USA into the war. President Wilson's "Fourteen Points," set forth in
an address to Congress, had a great impact on world opinion at the time when all belligerents
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except the US were exhausted by the war effort. In the spring of 1918, the Germans planned their
great offensive to capture the Channel ports. In spite of early successes, however, attrition had
taken its heavy toll. Aided by their new weapon the tank, British forces turned the tide at
Amiens, a battle that German Commander Ludendorf decided was critical.
Britain's seizure of Palestine from the Ottoman Turks (aided by the successes of the famed
Lawrence of Arabia), was followed by the Balfour Declaration of November 11, 1917 that
favored the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Further allied
successes on the Eastern front, the defeat of the Bulgarians, the capitulation of Turkey, a victory
by the Italians at Vitoria Veneto, a mutiny of the German fleet at Kieland a revolt by the German
people against their military leaders, all convinced the German high command to enter into peace
negotiations. The abdication of the Kaiser was followed by the imposition of severe armistice
terms by the allies at Compiegne. They were accepted on November 11, 1918; what had been the
costliest war in human history was over.
The cost to Britain was the loss of an entire generation, one whose contribution to national life
was to be sadly missed during the political mismanagement of the postwar years. The blood
baths of the Somme and Passchendaele could never be adequately described by the nation's poets
and prose writers, most of whom had been conscripted into the army when the regulars, as a
fighting force, had ceased to exist. So many of Britain's physical and intellectual best were killed
off in the endless fighting to gain a few yards of muddy ground.
During the War, there was also unrest at home, particularly in the industrial belt of Scotland
where Intense labor conflict gave the name "Red Clyde" to its shipbuilding region. A series of
episodes took place there that have since assumed legendary proportions, almost on the scale of
the Jacobite rebellion. The conflicts, pitting management's use of semi- or unskilled labor against
the militant unions, produced such well-known activists as James Maxton, John Wheatley, John
Maclean and Emmanual Shinwell. The troubles culminated in the George Square riot in
Edinburgh of 1919 that practically ensured the Labour Party's national victory in the General
Election of 1922. They have been regarded by many in the Labour Movement as forming part of
the "glad, confident morning" of Scottish socialism.
As noted earlier, however, it was the Liberal Party under Lloyd George that was most effective
in bringing needed changes to Britain. The introduction of salaries for M.P.'s in 1911l meant that
the Labour Party could now field many candidates from the ranks of the trade unions. Scotsman
Keir Hardie, the socialist ex-miner, had been elected to Parliament by the Merthyr constituency
(South Wales) in 1891. In the hallowed halls of Westminster, he defiantly chose to wear his cloth
deer-stalker hat (transmogrified by legend into a working man's cloth cap) in place of the usual
top hat.
It wasn't only conditions in industry that were being transformed by the growth of Labour. There
were also many changes taking place in British agriculture during the early years of the century.
A rapid increase in population due to a declining death rate meant that farmers were unable to
meet the increasing demand for butter, cheese, margarine and lard (used for cooking until the
switch to vegetable oil right up until the 1960's), and a reliance grew upon Denmark for these
products. English farmers turning to market gardening and fruit growing. Fuel shortages in 1916
motivated Parliament to pass a "summer time" act, advancing clocks one hour to make the most
of available light. Farmers protested in vain.
To meet domestic demand, imports of US pork, Argentine beef and New Zealand lamb
continued to rise, but a significant contribution to raising protein levels of urban English diets
came with the introduction of the fish and chip shop. It utilized the product of fast, deep-sea
trawlers that packed their catch in ice and rapidly shipped it to British markets. A new addition
to the British diet was baked beans, first test marketed in Northern England by the American
Heinz Company in 1905, but which became a staple of British diets beginning in 1928 when the
first canning factory began at Harlesden, near London.
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СРСП-29
England in the 20th Century
Between the Two World Wars
Following the Armistice of 1918, the first order of the day for the victorious allies (Britain,
France, the USA, Italy, Japan and to a lesser extent Russia) was to hammer out the peace terms
to be presented to the defeated powers (Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey and Hungary). At
Versailles, Lloyd George represented Britain; pressing for severe penalties against the Germans,
he came up against the idealism of US President Wilson, anxious to have his plans for a League
of Nations implemented; and Clemenceau of France, who wished for even more severe
recriminations against Germany.
The final treaty came in June, 1919. The reparations and "war-guilt" clauses were later seen by
English economist John Maynard Keynes as a future cause of discontent; they later became an
excuse for Herr Hitler to begin his efforts to countermand them. The US did not ratify the treaty,
and the disunity that prevailed after its signing did not bode well for the future of Europe. In
addition, the United States and Russia did not join the League of Nations that met for the first
time in Geneva in November, 1920.
The matter of Ireland then became a serious source of hemorrhage to the confidence of a
seemingly-united Great Britain. The war had presented the opportunity the Irish nationalists had
been waiting for since the postponement of the Home Rule Act of 1914. When they seized their
opportunity to attack British rule in Ireland, the execution of many of their leaders following the
Easter Monday Rising in Dublin, made reconciliation between the two countries impossible.
The British government failed to separate its important Irish prisoners. An internment camp at
Frongoch, in North Wales, later known as "Sinn Fein " University, brought together many who
would later become key figures in the fight for independence, including Michael Collins (later to
become Director of Intelligence as well as chief organizer) and Richard Mulcahy (later to
become Chief of Staff). Prisoners were inspired by hearing the Welsh language all around the
camp declare a republic in which Gaelic would be the national language. In 1918, following the
General Election, the successful Sinn Feiners refused their seats at Westminster and formed the
Dail Eireann that proclaimed the Irish Republic on January 21, 1919.
The war against British rule then began, lasting until December 1920 when atrocities and counter
atrocities by both sides (not only those committed by the infamous "Black and Tans.") finally led
to the Government of Ireland Act. The Act divided Ireland into Northern Ireland (containing the
largest part of Ulster) and Southern Ireland, giving both parts Home Rule, but reserving taxation
powers for the Westminster Parliament. It seemed that no one in Ireland was satisfied and
guerrilla warfare intensified. The coalition government in London was finally convinced that a
policy of reconciliation was needed and a truce in July, 1921 was followed by the Anglo-Irish
Treaty of December.
Mainly through a threat of an all-out war, Lloyd George somehow managed to persuade the Irish
delegation, led by Michael Collins, to accept the offer of Dominion status within the
Commonwealth rather than hold out for an independent republic, and the Irish Free State came
into being. A basic British condition was that the six counties of Northern Ireland, mainly
Protestant (who equated Home Rule with Rome Rule) should not be coerced into a united
Ireland, the other 32 counties, mainly Catholic.
Eamon De Valera (one of the participants in the Easter Rising, but who had escaped from
Lincoln Gaol) objected to the oath of allegiance to the Crown and formed a new party, the
Republican Party against the government of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. It began a bitter
civil war in which Collins, leader of the Dail's military forces and a much revered Irish patriot
lost his life leading the Free-State forces against the Republicans. The bloody civil war ended in
April 1923 when De Valera, who had been elected President of the Irish Free State in 1919,
129
ordered a cease fire. Eire was finally declared a republic in April 1948, with Northern Ireland
remaining as part of the United Kingdom.
The Great Depression
In the meantime, there had been a major downturn in the British economy since the end of the
World War. Government promises of a better society in which there would be a higher standard
of living and security of employment had not been fulfilled. The productivity rate was falling
rapidly behind that of other nations; there was simply too much reliance on the traditional
industries of cotton, coal mining and shipbuilding, all of which were finding it difficult to
compete in world markets and all of which were managed by those who could not adapt to more
modern methods. Many countries which had been dependent upon British manufactured goods
were now making their own. A great slump in which millions were unemployed was left to work
itself out when planned government expenditure would have helped mobilize the unused
resources of the economy.
The Liberal Party, which had done so much to alleviate conditions of poverty and had made so
many significant strides in improving social conditions in general, began to lose its standing in
the polls after 1922. The political program of the Labour Party advocated increased social
security measures, including a national minimum wage, the nationalization of basic industries
such as coal, railways and electricity; and the imposition of higher taxation to pay for social
welfare and to reduce the burden of the National Debt. The "dole" (unemployment benefit)
allowed workers to survive while unemployed (it was probably the reason why there was not
greater social unrest or even revolution).
Labour had become the chief challenger to the Conservative Party, and formed its first
government in 1924 under James Ramsey MacDonald. In October of that year, however, Britain
once more turned to the Conservatives under Stanley Baldwin. As had Labour, however, it
proved ineffective to handle the nation's industrial problems.
Further mass unemployment resulted when Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill
returned Britain to the gold standard in 1925. The return was made at the old pre-war gold and
dollar value of the pound. As a result, the pound was devalued; British goods (coal, steel,
machinery, textiles, ships, cargo rates and other goods and services) became over-priced, and
Britain's share of the world export market declined rapidly. The resulting unemployment and
wage cuts caused serious repercussions in the industrial areas, where strikes became common.
Iron, steel, coal, cotton and ship building suffered the most, the very industries that Britain's free
trade economy relied upon to provide the bulk of the consumer and capital goods exported to
provide for the large imports of food and raw materials. A general strike took place in 1926.
A huge drop in coal exports, the government's refusal to nationalize the coal industry and the
setting of wages by the pit-owners triggered the unrest. In April of that year, the miners' leader,
A.J. Cook coined the phrase "not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day." The mine owners
refused to compromise. A showdown came about when the government indicated that it would
not continue negotiations under the threat of a general strike. On May 4, 1926 the great strike
went into effect, but lack of support for the unions, the use of volunteers to keep essential
services going, the intransigence of the government, and the gradual wearing away of the
resistance of the miners by the coal owners eventually ended the stoppage. But grievous harm
had been done to the miners, who came out of the business with longer hours and less pay.
Under the Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin, only a modest program of social reform
took place, mainly to appease working class opinion. The Widows, Orphans and Old Age Health
Contributory Pension schemes extended the Act of 1911 and insured over 20 million people. In
1928, the Equal Franchise Act gave the parliamentary vote to all women over twenty one. Under
Health Minister Neville Chamberlain, the Local Government Act of 1929 reduced the number of
local government authorities and extended the services they provided. There was still lacking a
coherent policy to deal with the relief of unemployment. A Labour government, elected in 1929,
came to power at the beginning of a world-wide depression triggered by the Wall Street Crash,
but like the Conservative government before it, could do little to remedy the situation at home.
130
In the 1930's things improved a little under a national government comprised of members from
all parties, led by Ramsey MacDonald. The abandonment of the gold standard and the decision
to let the pound find its own value against the US dollar made British export prices more
competitive in world markets. Agriculture was aided by the adoption of a protective tariff and
import quotas in 1931. A building boom followed the increase in population that new health
measures made possible. Old industries were replaced by newer ones such as automobiles,
electrical manufactures, and chemicals. There were also changes made in the relationship of
Britain to her colonies.
Since the Durham Report of 1839, the white-settled colonies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand
and South Africa had been virtually independent of Britain. The Statute of Westminster, passed
in November, 1931, removed much legal inferiority not addressed in 1839. The independence of
the Dominions was now established. The Crown remained as a symbol of the free association of
the members of the British Commonwealth. The Imperial Economic Conference met in Ottawa,
Canada in July 1932 to hash out the problems of Dominion economic policies and to settle the
matter of their exports to Britain.
At the conference, Britain agreed to abandon free trade, imposing a 10 percent tariff on most
imported goods, but exempting Commonwealth nations. In turn, they were to provide markets
for British exports, including textiles, steel, cars and telecommunications equipment (thereby
discouraging innovation in many industries, which was to put Britain further behind other
countries).
The colonies had come of age; the conference showed only too well that Britain was no longer a
magnet for Commonwealth goods. In 1932, however, King George initiated the Christmas Day
radio broadcasts that served to link the Commonwealth countries in a common bond with
England. Their loyalty was to be proven in World War II during the reign of George VI. George
had come to the throne in 1936 after the abdication of his older brother Edward VIII (tradition
ensured that the Edward had to renounce the throne if he were to marry the American divorcee
Mrs. Simpson).
In the late 1930's Britain's foreign policy stagnated; there were too many problems to worry
about at home. While domestic policies still had to find a way out of the unemployment mess, it
was vainly hoped that the League of Nations would keep the peace, and while the aggressive
moves by Germany, Italy and Japan may not have been totally ignored in Westminster, their
implications were not fully grasped. It seems incredible, in retrospect, how all the signs of a
forthcoming major war were conveniently ignored.
In Germany, Hitler had become Chancellor in July 30, 1934 on a rising tide of nationalism and
economic unrest. After he proclaimed the Third Reich in March, his regime was given dictatorial
powers. Also in March, the Nazis opened their first concentration camp for Jews, gypsies and
political prisoners. In August, Hitler became President of the Reich at the death of Hindenburg.
He announced open conscription early in 1935, in defiance of the conditions laid down at
Versailles. Unencumbered by obsolete equipment and even more obsolete thinking that hindered
the British and the French, the German republic was able to rebuild her army and airforce from
scratch. They were soon to be used in a bid to dominate Europe.
Italy had entered the scramble for Africa in 1881 by taking over Assab in northern Ethiopia. It
then expanded its holdings in the East African highlands. In 1887 the Italian-Ethiopian War
began. Three years later, Italy made Assab the basis of an Eritrean colony. By 1896, however, a
series of defeats led to the Italians withdrawing from their protectorate. In 1906, a Tripartite Pact
declared the independence of Ethiopia but divided the country into British, French, and Italian
spheres of interest.
In Italy, in November 1922, general fears of communism led King Victor Emmanuel to summon
Benito Mussolini to form a ministry in which he would be given dictatorial powers to restore
order and bring about reforms. Earlier in the year, Mussolini had led his black-shirts Fascists into
Rome. He secured his fascist Dictatorship the following year through political chicanery and
began protesting the terms of Versailles in 1930.
131
When Italian and Ethiopian troops clashed on the frontier between Italian Somaliland and
Ethiopia in 1934, Mussolini had an excuse to invade Ethiopia. After his troops had occupied
Addis Abbaba, he announced the annexation of Ethiopia and joined Eritrea and Italian
Somaliland to create Italian East Africa. The League of Nations proved totally ineffective to
prevent this seizure of the last bastion of native rule in Africa.
Lack of British resolve against the ambitions of Mussolini may have spurred Hitler to act. In
March, 1936, at the height of the crisis in Ethiopia, he sent his armies into the Rhineland. France
was afraid to react without British support. It proceeded to fortify its Maginot Line as Hitler
began to fortify the Rhineland. The dictators of Germany and Italy then signed the pact known as
the Rome-Berlin Axis. Both leaders then supported General Franco's fascists in the Spanish Civil
War (1936-39). Britain and France stood back for fear of precipitating a general European war;
in their efforts to appease, they protested but did nothing except to embolden Hitler even further.
His troops marched into Austria in March, 1938.
Hitler's next move was first to surround Bohemia and then to demand modifications to the Czech
frontier, including the Sudetenland (with a large German population). Fearing a catastrophic war,
and with the vivid memory of the carnage of World War I in mind, British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain then agreed, along with the French Premier, to hand over the Sudetenland
to Germany. He thought he had bought "peace with honor." Hitler then showed his true intention
by seizing the rest of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlains finally saw what Germany intended, to
dominate Europe, and his extension of a guarantee to Poland practically ensured war.
СРСП-30
: England in the 20th Century
World War II
In the late 1930's Britain's foreign policy stagnated; there were too many problems to worry
about at home. While domestic policies still had to find a way out of the unemployment mess, it
was vainly hoped that the League of Nations would keep the peace. While the aggressive moves
by Germany, Italy and Japan may not have been totally ignored in Westminster; their
implications were not fully grasped. It seems incredible, in retrospect, how all the signs of a
forthcoming major war were conveniently ignored.
In Germany, Hitler had become Chancellor on July 30, 1934, on a rising tide of nationalism and
economic unrest. After he proclaimed the Third Reich in March, his regime was given dictatorial
powers. Also in March, the Nazis opened their first concentration camp for Jews, gypsies and
political prisoners. In August, Hitler became President of the Reich at the death of Hindenburg.
He announced open conscription early in 1935, in defiance of the conditions laid down at
Versailles. Unencumbered by obsolete equipment and even more obsolete thinking that hindered
the British and the French, the German republic was able to rebuild her army and airforce from
scratch. They were to be used soon in a bid to dominate Europe.
Italy had entered the scramble for Africa in 1881 by taking over Assab in northern Ethiopia. It
then expanded its holdings in the East African highlands. In 1887 the Italian-Ethiopian War
began. Three years later, Italy made Assab the basis of an Eritrean colony. By 1896, however, a
series of defeats led to the Italians withdrawing from their protectorate. In 1906, a Tripartite Pact
declared the independence of Ethiopia but divided the country into British, French and Italian
spheres of interest.
In Italy, in November 1922, general fears of the spread of Communism led King Victor
Emmanuel to summon Benito Mussolini to form a ministry in which he would be given
dictatorial powers to restore order and bring about reforms. Earlier in the year, Mussolini had led
132
his black-shirt Fascists into Rome. He secured his fascist dictatorship the following year through
political chicanery and began protesting the terms of Versailles in 1930.
When Italian and Ethiopian troops clashed on the frontier between Italian Somaliland and
Ethiopia in 1934, Mussolini had an excuse to invade Ethiopia. After his troops had occupied
Addis Abbaba, he announced the annexation of Ethiopia and joined Eritrea and Italian
Somaliland to create Italian East Africa. The League of Nations proved totally ineffective to
prevent this seizure of the last bastion of native rule in Africa.
Lack of British resolve against the ambitions of Mussolini may have spurred Hitler to act. In
March 1936, at the height of the crisis in Ethiopia, he sent his armies into the Rhineland. France
was afraid to react without British support. It proceeded to fortify its Maginot Line as Hitler
began to fortify the Rhineland. The dictators of Germany and Italy then signed the pact known as
the Rome-Berlin Axis. Both leaders then supported General Franco's fascists in the Spanish Civil
War (1936- 39). Britain and France stood back for fear of precipitating a general European war;
in their efforts to appease, they protested but did nothing except to embolden Hitler even further.
His troops marched into Austria in March 1938. There was no resistance.
Hitler's next move was to surround Bohemia and then demand modifications to the Czech
frontier, including the Sudetenland (with a large German population). Fearing a catastrophic war,
and with the vivid memory of the carnage of World War I in mind, British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain agreed, along with the French Premier, to hand over the Sudetenland to
Germany. He thought he had bought "peace with honor." Hitler then showed his true intention by
seizing the rest of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain finally saw what Germany intended to dominate
Europe, and his extension of a guarantee to Poland, a country which geography he was incapable
of aiding, practically ensured war.
In Britain, though there were two million unemployed, but things were generally looking
prosperous following the slump of the Great Depression. Nevertheless, it was a totally
unprepared Britain that declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939; two days after Hitler's
armies had invaded Poland. Conscription was ordered for all men 20 years and older. Somewhat
better prepared France followed Britain by declaring war on Germany.
German armies swept through Poland in 18 days. The allies turned to Russia for support, but
Stalin had ideas of his own, coming to a marriage of convenience with Hitler in which Poland
became a pawn in the hands of both. Stalin also took advantage of the situation to attack Finland.
Britain then prepared for total war. Cities were blacked out, rationing was imposed and rigidly
enforced; children from the larger cities were moved into the countryside, clouds of barrage
balloons filled the English skies, housewives turned in their pots and pans for scrap, iron fences,
railing and gateposts disappeared into blast furnaces, gas masks were issued to every single
person, including babies; total blackout was imposed and rigorously enforced by air Ðraid
wardens. While the country waited to see if the French could successfully resist the Nazi armies,
British beaches were mined, protected by barbed wire; tank traps and other obstacles to invading
forces appeared everywhere; air raid shelters were dug in back gardens and London subway
stations prepared for their influx of nightly sleepers.
Trapped behind their so-called "impenetrable" Maginot Line, the French could not hold back the
German tide, and the new weapon of war, the Blitzkrieg, swept all through it. Hitler's legions
first occupied Denmark and then brushed aside a Franco-British force sent to help Norway.
Beginning their march to the Channel in the Ardennes, after they had easily bypassed the
Maginot Line, German forces took only five days to take Holland. They then raced forward at
lightning speed to capture Paris. In one of the most successful campaigns in the history of war,
German forces soon controlled France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark,
Norway and Romania, leaving Britain alone in the West to face the Nazi hordes.
In May 1940, after a disastrous British attempt to force the Germans out of Narvik, Norway, a
humiliated Chamberlain (who had earlier crowed that "Herr Hitler had missed the boat")
resigned in favor of Winston Churchill. The 65-year-old veteran of many a political campaign
was to prove a remarkable leader. The country quickly rallied behind him to expend its "blood,
133
toil, tears and sweat" to eventually emerge victorious in what was to become a long, bloody war
that, if it did not involve nearly every country on earth, certainly affected them.
British industry mobilized every person not on military service into production. Even the old and
retired were called on to play their part as plane spotters, air-raid wardens and night watchmen.
But single women played a major role. They had to report immediately to work in war industries
or to work on the nation's farms in the so-called Women's Land Army. Women also entered the
armed services by the thousands, to work as radar operators, mechanics, truck drivers and pilots
in non-combat roles, even the retired.
After the complete collapse of France in June 1940, when it signed an armistice, Mussolini
entered the war on the side of Germany, believing that Britain was doomed and that he could
pick up rich spoils in Africa. When France fell, the British army was forced to evacuate the
continent at Dunkirk, but somehow halting a German division at Arras, managed to save most of
its cadre to train millions of new soldiers it needed to defend its Empire. One of the strangest
fleets in history had rescued the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force from the burning
beaches of Dunkirk. In the meantime, Soviet troops entered the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania to incorporate them into the USSR.
New Prime Minister Winston Churchill informed the British people that the Battle for France
was over: the Battle for Britain was about to begin. He stressed that Hitler would have to break
Britain in order to win the war, and that no nation would be safe from sinking into the resulting
darkness, not even the United States.
When France formed a "Vichy" government under Marshal Petain, the Royal Navy destroyed the
French fleet anchored at Oran in North Africa. In the Atlantic, German U-boats were destroying
thousands upon thousands of tons of allied shipping, but Britain precariously held out (those of
us who were living in Britain at the time realize just how near to collapse we were). All Britain
could do was to hang on, to fight on until the situation might eventually change. Hitler expected
Britain to come to terms, but Churchill's defiant riposte was that he wasn't on speaking terms
with Adolph Hitler.
Realizing that she would not come to terms, Hitler then planned an invasion of England, but first
he would have to destroy the Royal Air Force. The task seemed easy enough; he had a decided
advantage in the number of planes and in trained pilots. From airfields in conquered France, the
English coast was only a few minutes away. At a time when the war at sea was rapidly turning in
Germany's favor, the Battle of Britain began with an attack of German bombers on England, July
10, 1940 and artillery began shelling the English coast. The final assault was planned for August
13th. Hitler planned to have 125,000 men ashore by the end of the second day. Plans were
meticulously drawn up for the government of a conquered Britain.
There was great fear throughout Britain during that late summer. In many villages, church bells
rang in the mistaken belief that the invasion had begun. There wasn't much to stop the invader.
Though 1,500,000 men in Britain had joined the Home Guard, they had only 70,000 rifles; the
regular army had left most of its hardware behind in the evacuation from France. All that stood
between the German armies and the planned invasion of Britain was the Fighter Command of the
Royal Air Force.
During the early air war, the German Air Force conducted over 1500 missions a day over
England, concentrating mainly on airfields and radar installations. Hitler's second-in-command
Herman Goering miscalculated the resilience of the Royal Air Force. When British planes
bombed Berlin to retaliate for bombs dropped on London (the German pilots had lost their way
and missed their intended targets), Hitler determined to teach the British people, those "night
gangsters, " a lesson. Insisting on a thousand-fold revenge, he ordered the Luftwaffe to destroy
London. It was a grave error.
The British Air Force did not rise to the bait to defend London; they conserved what was left of
their strength. More important, their airfields (and pilots) were given a much-needed respite to
rebuild. Skilled use of a secret new weapon, Radar, then gave them a decided advantage over
incoming German airplanes.
134
Though almost exhausted and down to its last few pilots, the RAF fought on in what was
becoming a war of attrition in the air. Eventually, the heavy losses sustained by the Luftwaffe
put an end to any real chances of German forces crossing the Channel. On September 17,
following decisive losses, Hitler postponed the invasion of Britain. Instead of keeping up the
pressure, the frustrated German dictator decided to ignore Goering's pleas for just a few more
days to destroy Britain's air forces and turned eastward, to attack Russia.
In June 1941 when the German armed divisions poured into the east, Britain breathed a huge
sigh of relief. Hitler's hatred of Communism blinded him to the risks involved; it was a colossal
mistake. His involvement in the Balkans, where he feared a British attack against his flank from
Greece, had delayed his assault on Russia. The oncoming winter would prove to be a deciding
factor in the holocaust that ensued.
In September 1940, following a total blockade of the British Isles ordered by Hitler, U-boats
sank 160,000 tons of British shipping. (In a time of great food shortages, even the Royal Family
was issued ration books). These were called "the happy times" for German U-boat crews,
idolized by adoring crowds as they set out into the Atlantic to wreak havoc on merchant ships
bringing supplies from America. The British people, huddled in their air-raid shelters awaited the
worst. Their defiance of the might of the German air force, their courage in carrying on "business
as usual" and their slogan "London can Take it"" (relayed to the United States by radio
commentators such as Edward R. Murrow) had a profound effect upon American opinion,
especially upon the President.
In opposition to many in America who still thought that Britain's total defeat was only a mater of
time, and a very short time at that, President Roosevelt came to the aid of the beleaguered island
nation. He ordered his fleet to sink German submarines on sight. To meet the U-boat challenge,
the US then provided Britain with Lend-Lease supplies in addition to handing over to the Royal
Navy 50 much-needed destroyers. In November, British ships destroyed the Italian fleet at
Taranto, putting it, like most of the French fleet before it, out of action for the rest of the war.
Mussolini's grand boast of dominating what he called "mare nostrum" was defeated. The Royal
Navy managed to keep control of the Mediterranean throughout the war.
In September, Japan had concluded a pact with the Axis powers in order to fulfil her designs on
the Pacific, ranging from Hong Kong to Australia. On December 7, 1941 she seized her
opportunity to attack. On the "day of infamy" so strongly proclaimed by Roosevelt, the Imperial
Air force crippled the US Navy at Pearl Harbor. On December 11, Germany declared war on the
US. Japanese forces then captured the British possessions of Malaya, Burma, Hong Kong and
Singapore, the great symbol of the British Empire. They then advanced practically unopposed to
the borders of India in the West and Australia in the South.
The Turn of the Tide
It seemed that the Japanese were unstoppable, but as had the Germans, they over-reached
themselves. A string of successes was halted in May 1942 when they sustained heavy losses in
the Battle of the Coral Sea. Germany too, suffered its first defeat when Hitler underestimated the
strategic importance of Egypt. There, the British Eighth Army (the "Desert Rats") under
Montgomery destroyed a German fighting machine of 250,000 men at the Battle of El Alamein
in October 1942. After being blocked by the winter snows and the fierce resistance of the
Russians, in February 1943, a huge German army surrendered at Stalingrad.
Later in the year, Allied forces recaptured Sicily to invade Southern Italy, and all through the
year, Russian troops continued to inflict heavy casualties on the Germans, who lost over 2,000
tanks and 1,392 airplanes at the decisive Battle of Kursk. The tide of war had turned irrevocably
on the side of the allies. It was still heavy going in Italy, but bit by bit allied armies advanced up
the peninsular, despite determined German resistance, recapturing Rome to bring Italy out of the
war. The whole country had been taken by the spring of 1945. It was now time for the allies to
invade fortress Europe.
On the sixth of June 1944, "D-Day" the invasion of the Continent by allied forces in Operation
Overlord marked the beginning of the end of the war in the West. Years of meticulous planning
135
and careful preparation paid off and hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers were landed within
a few days with their equipment. Deceptive messages had led the Germans to concentrate their
forces around the port of Calais. An expected German counterattack at the landing beaches did
not come.
Some failures in the re-conquest of western Europe inevitably ensued, notably the efforts of
Montgomery to end an early stalemate in Normandy by the airborne attempt to capture bridges
over the Rhine, but steady progress brought British, Canadian, French and American forces into
Germany. A failure of allied intelligence to spot 24 Nazi divisions gave the enemy temporary
success in the Ardennes, at the Battle of the Bulge, but it was beaten back with heavy German
losses. Hitler's exhausted forces in the west were finally brushed aside.
Back home, Londoners were once again forced into their underground shelters as V-1 rockets
began to fall upon the city with terrifying effects. By September 1944, Germany still had enough
resources to produce a thousand V-2 rockets a month, most of which were directed toward
London. Only defeat of Germany would end the threat. In March 1945, the allies crossed the
Rhine. In the east, a new Russian offensive began with 3,000,000 men polishing off one German
division after another on an inexorable march to Berlin. In April, east met west as allied forces
met with the Russians at the Elbe. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered.
The fall of Saipan in July had the same effect in the East. The War in Europe came to an end on
May 8. The news eclipsed the news from Burma, where British forces under William Slim had
stopped the Japanese efforts to invade India through Assam. By May 6, 1945, Burma had been
retaken. The re-conquest was the most successful of all the campaigns British forces had
undertaken during the whole war. It was the climax of a most difficult but brilliantly executed
campaign.
The War in the Pacific came to an end on August 14, 1945. Japan surrendered only after the
American Airforce dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
СРСП-31
England in the 20th Century
The Post-War Years
The great social-leveling influence of the War meant that Britains were anxious for change.
Countless thousands of returning soldiers and sailors wanted a turn-around in the status quo.
Members of British armed forces were considerably better educated than they had been in World
War I. The soldier returning from the war was no longer in awe of his leaders; he had mixed
loyalties. He was resentful of unemployment, wishing for a greater share in the nation's post-war
restructuring, and he did not trust a Conservative government to tackle the enormous social
economic and political problems, that they had done very little to solve between the wars. He
wished for a change.
As a consequence, Winston Churchill, who led Britain to victory during the war, found himself
as a member of the opposition when the election of 1945 returned the Labour Party to power
with a huge majority. Under the Parliament of Clement Attlee, the new government began some
of the greatest changes in Britain's long history---nothing less than a reconstruction of the nation.
The Labour Government struggled heroically to deal with the problems: to improve standards of
living, move to a "mixed economy." close the trade gap, maintain its armed forces in sufficient
strength to meet a new threat from Communist Russia, and to keep of its overseas bases. It
succeeded in these aims remarkably well. During the dark early days of the War, economist
William Beveridge had put forward proposals for postwar "cradle-to-grave" social security. The
Government had taken on an emergency welfare responsibility; it provided milk for babies;
orange juice and cod-liver oil for children.
136
It was now time for Labour to put the Beverage Plan into full operation. Family allowances had
already been introduced before the War's end. A National School Lunch Act was passed in June,
1946. In 1948, the government introduced the National Health Service to proved free medical
treatment for all, from the spectacles and false teeth, to maternity and child welfare services.
Nationalization of the hospitals made nationwide care available for the injured and seriously ill.
The "Welfare State" had begun.
The second major change brought about by the Labour Government, under Attlee, was to take
control of industry and public utilities, and a two-year period beginning in 1946, saw the
nationalization of the Bank of England; the coal industry; electricity and gas; air transport, along
with road, rail and waterways. A total of 20 percent of all British industry had been taken into
public ownership by 1950. (In August, 1947, the government operated its first atomic pile, at
Harwell). Central control of the economy, which had proved so successful in wartime, was now
a major undertaking in peacetime. It was achieved under terribly adverse economic conditions.
Another crisis occurred in 1947.
Stringent financial measures, imposed to meet the enormous war debt, caused undue hardship
that was only made worse by one of the worst winters on record, monstrous gales and floods
wiped out farms and destroyed agricultural products. A fuel shortage severely curtailed exports,
food was still severely rationed, and in 1948 even bread and potatoes were rationed (both had
been exempt during the War). The author remembers well the little ditty "It had to B.U." that
parodied a popular song of the time by referring to the Bread Unit.
In 1947, relief appeared in the form of the Marshall Plan, introduced by the US to help the
European Economy recover. Along with the devaluation of the pound and an expansion of world
markets, there was a revival of the spirit that had united the country during the War. The
introduction of the Land-Rover to world markets in 1948 was a godsend for British exports.
Britain was even able to join with the US in ferrying supplies to Berlin in the famous "Airlift"
that began in July of that year. By 1950, rationing began to be phased out, though not until 1954
was meat rationing abolished.
Though the Labour Government did very little to develop the private sector, it can take credit for
the building of giant hydro-electric schemes in the later 1940's, especially in the undeveloped
areas of Scotland and Wales. In 1951, the Conservatives resumed control of the government.
Under its slogan "You've Never Had It So Good," led by the aging Winston Churchill, economic
prospects seemed to be on the upturn. In less than one year, the balance of payments deficit had
become a surplus.
Compared to those of the developing nations of Southeast Asia and the rebuilt economies of
Japan and Germany, however, Britain's pre-war industrial strength was severely weakened. The
much-heralded Festival of Britain, held in London in 1951 has been seen by many in retrospect,
not as a demonstration of the nation's strength, but as a product of British postwar weakness and
a signal pointing to further decline. A fashionable joke at the time was that, like the Festival's
Skylon, the country had no visible means of support. The Nation and the Commonwealth
mourned the death of King George VI, who along with his queen Elizabeth, had done much to
bring back dignity and honor to the monarchy. Yet there was a mood of optimism that received
an another upturn with the coronation of the young queen Elizabeth, the first such ceremony to
be televised.
137
СРСП-32
England in the 20th Century
Something of a miracle occurred just when the world's oil producing nations doubled the cost of
their product: Britain herself became a major oil producer. Since 1962, she had been conducting
seismic prospecting for oil and natural gas in the North Sea, and full-scale activities had begun in
1964, the first oil find came five years later. Great expansion of the oil fields then took place in
the 1970's so that in 1979, the country's oil production exceeded its imports for the first time.
Britain's ports also adapted to the new container vessels, spelling the end for such great
traditional ports as Liverpool, Glasgow and East London.
Continuing violence between Catholics, committed to union with Eire and Protestants,
committed to retaining their British identity, led to the Government imposing direct rule over
Northern Ireland, but hopes for peace were shattered on "Bloody Sunday" when British troops
opened fire on protesters at Londonderry (January 30, 1972). The IRA brought their violence to
Britain, killing a leading Conservative M.P. in March. In Ireland, violence continued and Lord
Mountbatten was killed by an IRA bomb in August.
In 1974, the whole of Britain felt itself under siege from a vicious bombing campaign. Violence
continued almost unabated. In 1985 the Anglo-Irish Agreement was an attempt to end it, with
both Britain and the Irish Republic agreeing to confer over the problems and to work together
against terrorism. It took the outrage of the Inniskillen bombing in 1998, however, to shock both
sides into realizing that governments could do little; peace had to come from the initiatives of the
people themselves.
Along with most of the industrialized nations of the world, Britain entered a period of depression
in the 1970's. A tremendous blow to British pride came in February, 1971 when Rolls-Royce
declared bankruptcy, forcing the government to bail out the company to avoid job losses and to
restore national prestige. Britain's post-war lead in the production of motor-cycles had long been
surrendered to the Japanese. In 1974, the great strike by the country's coal miners (over the
government's "freeze" on wages) caused the Conservatives to lose the general election but under
Labour, inflation spiraled and economic decline continued despite the social contract between
the government and the trade unions.
Bitter confrontation between unions and government continued to escalate. A strike by London
dock workers idled hundreds of ships and prevented goods from being exported. In March, 1979
Prime Minister Callaghan lost a vote of confidence by one vote in the House of Commons and
Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher became the nation's first woman Prime Minister in May.
Her promises to cut income taxes, scale down social services and reduce the role of the state in
daily life had wide appeal and gave her a large majority. Many in Britain also wished to curb the
power of the unions, which they believed had grown into a monster, almost out of control.
Margaret Thatcher
Though married to a millionaire, Margaret Thatcher was perceived as a grocer's daughter, hardworking and thrifty, a complete no-nonsense person. She was the first female Prime Minister in
the nation's history and gained her reputation as "the iron lady" for her tight control of Britain's
monetary policy. Her emphasis on "self-help" encouraged private enterprise, but her cutting back
of expenditures on health, social services and education made her extremely unpopular with the
masses. Then, in 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, claiming sovereignty over the
small group of islands they called the Islas Maldivas in the South Atlantic that was home to a
few thousand British settlers.
Prime Minister Thatcher sent a task force to recapture the islands; and after two months, the
better-trained and disciplined British infantry, aided by its highly maneuverable airplanes
(launched from carriers), won the day. The nation was jubilant, and Mrs. Thatcher was regarded
as something of a national hero. The problems resulting from the country fast-becoming multi-
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national, with whole areas of the larger cities occupied by those whose religion, dress, food and
social mores were considered "anti-British" were swept aside in a euphoria of jingoism.
Mrs. Thatcher's government was also helped by the splitting off of some Labour members to the
Social Democratic Party, who later joined with the Liberals in "the Alliance." Then, in Mrs.
Thatcher's second government, begun on such an optimistic note, the miners went on strike to
protest the closing of many pits deemed unprofitable. Under their dynamic and outspoken leader
Arthur Scargill, the miners also protested against overtime work. The bitterness caused by the
strikes and the insensitivity of the government to their demands deeply divided the whole of
British society. The Conservatives, once again helped by a split in opposition ranks, retained
their control of the government. Its legislation, the closing of so many pits, and the switch to oil,
had defeated the unions.
Mrs. Thatcher continued her policies of tight economic control, the privatization of industry and
"dismantling" (when possible) of the Welfare State. Privatization of British Gas, British
Telecom, the Water Authorities, British Airways and the electricity industry (termed by
Macmillan as 'the family silver") proved a godsend to government revenues and also created a
new class of British shareholders. The 1980's indeed, despite riots in the deprived areas of some
of England's biggest cities, and continued IRA terrorist attacks, were a decade of prosperity
(many immigrants, at the bottom of the social scale, especially those from the West Indies and
some African states would disagree).
The number of videos acquired by British families was far greater than those in the US or
Europe. The British were, on the whole, better fed, better housed, better clothed, cleaner and
warmer than at any time in their history. No wonder the Labour opposition was in complete
disarray. Spirits were also warmed in July, 1981 when Prince Charles married Lady Diana
Spencer (and another kind of spirit benefited from the "real-ale" campaign that protested against
the mass production of pasteurized beer).
In addition, many promising development in science occurred. In 1974, mainly with income
derived from the sale of Beatles records, the computed axial tomography scanner was developed
in England, revolutionizing diagnostic medicine in immunology, (essential for organ
transplants). In July, 1978, British doctors at London's Oldham Hospital created the world's first
"test tube baby" Louis Brown. British scientists retained their lead. The 1990's saw the birth of
the famous sheep Dolly (the first mammal produced from a donor cell taken from an adult rather
than from an embryo), and then Polly, a transgenic animal produced through cloning.
Britain was also busy creating its own "silicon valleys" adapting the new micro-chip technology
to replace traditional industries. In 1981, the Humber Bridge was completed; at 4,626 feet the
world's longest Suspension Bridge. The world's longest high-speed optical fiber link connected
Birmingham with London. British television projected an image of quality throughout the world.
In addition, one of Britain's oldest shoe companies, now named Reebok, made impressive gains
in the world market in competition with Nike.
General optimism, however, was tempered with distrust of one who was acquiring almost
dictatorial powers, and in 1990, the Iron Lady's imposition of the "Poll Tax" caused unrest and
street demonstrations. (The tax was an attempt to reform local government and finance by
replacing household rates, which made each voter bear a full share of the costs incurred by
prodigal spending). Inflation and interest rates also remained alarmingly high. Mrs. Thatcher's
decision to send British land and sea forces into the Gulf to participate in the United Nations
multi-national task force raged against the government of Iraq divided the country, especially
when it was learned that English casualties came mostly from "friendly" (i.e. US) fire.
The government was mainly split by the question of integration into Europe, with some
prominent members disagreeing with the purchase of the Westland Helicopter by Americans
rather then Europeans. Other such issues, heightened by what Sir Geoffrey Howe (deputy leader
of her own party) called her anti-European paranoia, brought a challenge to Thatcher's
leadership, and in November, 1990, the Thatcher Era came to an end. The longest ministry of the
century, it had glorified the Victorian values of self-help and nationalism.
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For many, the main achievement of the Iron lady was to free her country from the iron grip of
the trade unions. For others, it was the restoration of British pride in the victory in the Falklands.
For most, it was apparent that Britain was beginning to come to terms with the loss of much of
its heavy industry and the increasing reliance on finance, communications, oil, insurance,
tourism, accounting and other service industries.
СРСП-33
England in the 20th Century
John Major & Tony Blair
John Major then took over the reigns of the Conservative Party as Prime Minister. He was
committed to keeping "Thatcherism" alive. The unions were not going to regain their former
powers, despite public sentiment in favor of the miners and as debatable as the benefits of
privatization had proved, there was no going back to the old days of nationalized industries (and
council houses, which had been offered for sale to private owners).
What must not be overlooked in the polices of "Thatcherism" was the influence upon
intellectuals and government policymakers alike of "The Road to Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek (first
published in 1944). On Hayek's 90th birthday, Mrs. Thatcher wrote that none of what her
government had achieved would have been possible without the values and beliefs "that set us on
the right road and provide the right sense of direction." As a result of reading the book, Anthony
Fisher founded the Institute of Economic Affairs in London which was to be the most important
source of free-market ideas in Britain. By the mid-90's, there was very little to divide the Labour
and Conservative parties on the central principles of economic management.
When Major was first elected, Britain was still saying "No" to socialism. By the general election
of 1992, leading magazines (particularly in the US) wrote of the death of the Labour Party
eventhough it had abandoned its policy of nuclear disarmament, forgotten that it had preached in
favor of public ownership of the means of production and exchange, embraced the European
community and purged from within the unrepresentative labor bosses. Its motto "It's Time for a
Change" seemed to appeal to most Britons; not a single poll showed the Conservatives winning.
But once again, the desire for continuity overrode the desire for change, John Major was returned
to power.
Yet as early as 1993, the winds of change were blowing strong. Many Conservative M.P.'s were
in open rebellion over Europe. They were told to support Major's European policy or bring down
the government. The warm afterglow of the Gulf War had dissipated rapidly and continuing
economic problems and uncertain leadership ate away Major's popularity.
Leading Tories wanted to scuttle any deals Britain had made at Maastricht; they feared that
British industry would be subject to European regulations in working conditions and labor
relations. Hundreds of Tory candidates were in open rebellion over Major's fence straddling on
Europe; the Euro-skeptics determined to sabotage their leader. Why should they force Britain to
enter a stagnant Europe? In addition, continuing revelations in the daily newspapers about
scandals involving leading Tories doomed Mr. Major.
Despite the fact that the economy was recovering and inflation was at a 30-year low, the sale of
tens of thousands of public housing (at bargain prices), perhaps the greatest gift of wealth to the
working class in British history, putting the country far ahead of the US and Europe in the
percentage of housing units owner-occupied, and despite the highest growth rate and the lowest
unemployment in Europe, Labour won a landslide victory in 1997. Tony Blair was thus able to
inherit an economy free from the dreaded "British disease" (militant trade unions, overregulation, vacillating government policies and a foolish disdain toward enterpreneurship).
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The election took place only two years after Labour had rid itself of the clause in its constitution
that called for the "common ownership of production, distribution and exchange." It was
particularly anxious to keep the billions of dollars that had been invested annually in the UK by
the US, Japan, Korea and others during the 16 years of Conservative rule. The new brand of
socialism was hardly distinguishable from that of Mrs. Thatcher but the move of Labour to the
center was expedited by the popularity of its leaders.
The question of just how much should Britain integrate itself into Europe remained a thorny
issue with the new government. It was now joined by a much more ancient problem: that of
devolution with the British Isles, with powerful voices being raised in Scotland and Wales for
more self-government, and the seemingly insoluble problem of Northern Ireland casting a deep
shadow over the entire so-called United Kingdom.
On March 1, 1979 (St. David's Day) the people of Wales voted overwhelmingly against
devolution. The reasons were many (they are discussed in full in my "Brief History of Wales"
and "The Referendum of 1979." Too many feared changes in the statues quo; the work of the
anti-devolutionists, led by such influential Welsh M.P.'s as Neil Kinnock (with his eyes on the
Prime Minister's job) was done only too well. But in 1997 a new referendum was held in which,
by a small majority, the people of Wales chose an Assembly of their own, despite heavily
financed campaigns against it. This time, they had been supported by the Labour Party, led by
Tony Blair.
Scotland, meanwhile, voted overwhelmingly in favor of its own Assembly. The reasons are
given at length in my "Brief History of Scotland," but are also summarized below:
Though very much a minority party, and still suffering from the stigma attached to the very idea
of nationalism during war years, (the Scottish National Party) SNP had begun to build its
organizational skills and work on political strategy; its share of the vote steadily grew. This was
also a period of intense activity in Wales by members of Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales, and
by the fervent and some say overzealous and destructive activities of the Welsh Language
Society Cymdeithas yr Iaith Cymraeg. In any case, discontent in both areas of Britain led to a
feverish proliferation of committees soon at work in Westminster looking at further measures of
devolution for Scotland and Wales.
The government published its proposals for a devolved Scottish assembly in November 1975. It
would have no revenue raising powers and sovereignty would be retained in Westminster.
Though prospects for passage looked good, the wide range of competing priorities for
government attention took away the time needed for the Callaghan government to devote to the
issue. Labour, fearing loss of support in Scotland to the SNP, was also still deeply divided on the
question and the extent of devolution. The government's program was bound to fail: the Bill was
headed for defeat.
Eighteen years later, the results were reversed. On September 11, 1997, four days after the
trauma of Lady Diana's funeral, the referendum resulted in the decision to give back a Parliament
to Scotland by a 3-1 margin. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose Labour Party had actively
campaigned for passage of the devolution bill, called the results a step in the process of
"modernizing Britain." Hollywood movie star, Scotsman Sean Connery (who did not appear in
"Braveheart") campaigned hard and contributed a great deal of cash to the campaign, invoking
the 1370 Declaration of Arbroath, "It is not for glory, riches or honours we fight, but only for
liberty, which no good man loses but with his life."
The decision gives Scotland an Assembly with tax-levying powers, unlike the much weaker
"talking-shop" that the Welsh are going to be saddled with as the result of their own (barely)
successful referendum. The Scots will be given the broad authority to legislate in a host of
sectors, but Westminster has the right to "reserve" or "withhold" many powers (constitutional
matters, foreign policy, defense, and national security, border controls, monetary and fiscal
matters, common markets for goods and services, employment law, and social security).
For the people of Wales and Scotland (and no less, the people of England), the decision to
approve the Labour Government's plans for separate assemblies, may prove to be one of the most
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important ones in their long histories. In the councils of Europe, three voices will be heard
instead of one: three equal voices, sharing a unique British heritage, but each proud of its own
distinctiveness as cultural and political units. Westminster must have breathed a sigh of relief
that the problems of devolution for Wales and Scotland were settled so amicably. Would the
Irish question follow the same road? The problem of Europe remained for Tony Blair; in
addition, there was the age-old question of what to do about the House of Lords.
In many ways, the Upper Chamber had become an anachronism. The very idea of non-elected,
hereditary legislators seemed ridiculous in a country that prided itself on its democratic
institutions. The old arguments about the need for a second chamber to act as a brake on any
impetuousness showed by the government of the day had long since disappeared. Time and time
again the Lords had obstructed legislation that would have surely benefited the nation. Their
defense of ancient privilege had often blinded them to the realities of British political life since
the time of Oliver Cromwell. Their record on Ireland was appalling, with their obstruction of
Home Rule Bills, but it could be matched by many other areas in which they had excelled in
their obstinacy.
Leaving aside century after century of attacks on the privileges (and power) enjoyed by the
Lords, it was the budget of Lloyd George in 1909 that really stirred up the pot. The landed
aristocracy saw his attempts to tax the rich as the beginning of the end of all rights of property.
When the Lords rejected his bill, Lloyd George threatened to swamp them with five hundred
new peers. Yet all attempts at reform eventually died down lacking a concerted opinion as to
what kind of second chamber the country should support. The Parliament Bill of 1911 was thus a
weak compromise: all the hereditary peers and bishops would stay in the House, but their powers
of delay would be reduced to two years: it continued to remain a powerful revising chamber.
The advent of the First World War postponed the move to exclude hereditary peers from the
Upper House. A conference held in 1917, however, faced the old difficulty of "the paralysing
perplexity of so many alternatives." The Commons also feared that an elected upper chamber
would offer a serious challenge to its own powers. In 1922, Lloyd George became notorious for
selling lordships to the highest bidder; and the old aristocracy found itself rapidly outnumbered
by the new captains of industry and leading financiers on the benches of the chamber. The
newcomers proved just as anxious to preserve their newly-gained privileges as their hereditary
colleagues.
Another crisis occurred in 1960 when Antony Edgwood Benn, a promising and ambitious
Labour M.P. was duly elevated to the peerage upon the death of his father (who had been
appointed as a Labour peer only twenty years before). As a peer, the younger Benn was refused
admission to the Hose of Commons when he came to take his usual seat. A private bill, to allow
him to resign his peerage, was defeated. It took four years of contentious debate to settle the
matter, but it was evident that the House of Lords needed some drastic changes. The days of
complacency were over.
In 1967, the Labour Party announced its plans to reduce the powers of the Lords and to eliminate
its hereditary basis. Once again, however, it was willing to compromise in the uncertainly of
what was to replace the second chamber. Many Labour M.P.'s wished to abolish the Upper
House altogether, but a compromise was reached: only minor changes were effected. In the late
1990's, the government of Tony Blair and is centrist Labour Party, is still grappling with the
problem of the Lords, a problem that perhaps exemplifies the struggle of Britain to adjust itself
to the modern world.
There is nothing in the nation's proud past that would prevent a satisfactory solution to the
problem of the privileges enjoyed by the House of Lords. While England my no longer Rule the
waves, it is perfectly capable of putting its own house in order, as Wales and Scotland have
shown. The past two thousand years have shown a resilient people, proud and independent; a
people who will continue to give so much to the world, in art, literature, politics, science and
technology, exploration, social welfare and sport; but above all, in the difficult art of
compromise
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СРСП-34
The Development of Christian Society
in Early England
As Christianity spread through the Western world, it rarely followed a linear path: different
pockets of faith and doctrine were developed by a variety of peoples in an even greater variety of
locales. Nowhere is this more evident than in Roman Britain and the era of Anglo-Saxon
migrations. In five centuries, English religious culture transformed from one of pagan worship to
that of leadership in the Christian world. Controversies included more than merely paganChristian dynamics; the Christians were greatly divided, and Christian efforts went through
many ebbs before becoming firmly established. One must evaluate the development of both
Rome and England to gain an adequate understanding of early English Christianity.
Fifty-five years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Julius Caesar encountered the Druidic religious
culture in his invasion of Britain. Although only recently established in Caesar's day, the Druids
exerted tremendous influence over British society; they were the priests of the primitive
government, and possessed considerable authority as such. In addition to their spiritual duties,
Druid priests were responsible for educating the youth, remained immune from military duty and
taxes, and presided over civil and criminal legal matters (to the point of deciding controversies
among states). They were the expression of both a local government and a community
spirituality that were bound to a larger whole. They ruled with an iron fist - decisions by Druid
priests were final and irrefutable. Their penalties were swift and severe, with many individual
Celts and Britons banished from contact with civilization. Many aspects of Druidic culture
surfaced in the formation of Celtic Christianity.
Druidism was a polytheistic cult with a naturist bent: gods and goddesses were believed to
inhabit local springs, caves, forests, and mountains, and became the personification of natural
objects and events. The entire social structure, both as local community and as loose nation-state,
was a caste system, with the Druid priests presiding above all. Caesar viewed them with
contempt; he found their brutality and centrality immediately threatening, and wrote of the
Druids:
All the Gauls are as a nation much given to superstition, and, therefore, persons
afflicted by severe illness or involved in wars and danger either make human
sacrifices or vow to do so, and use the Druids as their ministers in these
ceremonies. The Germans differ much from the Gauls in these customs. For they
have no Druids to preside over their religion.
Druidic paganism was destined to be replaced with the advent of further Roman expeditions into
the islands, and finally the full annexation of Britain by Rome. Caesar did little more than
establish a foothold on the island; Britain officially became a frontier province of the Empire
with the invasion of the emperor Claudius' troops in 43 AD.
The Roman Empire was approaching the height of her power as Britain became her furthest
frontier. The Roman army evolved into an institution of social mobility as Britain was romanized
in the first and second centuries. Roman legions embarked on a campaign of terror against the
Druids, as the latter refused polytheistic Roman religious beliefs, and thus rejected Roman
governmental prerogative. Roman religion, much like Druidism, was inherently intertwined with
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politics. For Britain to be subjugated under the authority of Rome, the rebellious Druids had to
be exterminated. The army paved the way for a flourishing Roman culture in southern England
by the early second century.
Social conditions in Rome and dissatisfaction with the corrupt Roman government left many
peasants in search of a spiritual fulfillment that was lacking in Roman religious institutions. Jews
received a high level of tolerance from the state in their religious practices, as long as they
maintained loyalty to the empire. The advent of Christianity in the mid-first century, however,
developed into a leviathan that eventually strained Roman tolerance. Early Christians were
exceedingly zealous in their faith, and as non-Italians gained more important official posts and
social status, many of the new breed of landed aristocrats were either tolerant of or converted to
Christianity.
Christianity gained a foothold in Britain by the mid-second century, but had yet to gain anything
approaching religious supremacy on the island. Early Christian churches were local communal
affairs - each board of elders was elected democratically by the community's inhabitants. Early
Christians refused to bow before Roman authority as the Jews had previously done, and many
were persecuted as enemies of the state (quite similar to the Druidic situation in Britain). Rome
would tolerate native religious rites, but would brook no treason. The universality of the empire,
however, paved the way for the universality of Christianity, as Christian missionaries traveled
easily along Roman roads on evangelistic expeditions.
As Christianity spread throughout the empire, the Roman government found Christian refusals to
worship Roman gods and participate in Roman festivals increasingly distressing; Christians
endured persecution in the first and second centuries, but on an individualized, local scale.
The third century proved disastrous to the empire: an outbreak of the plague, increasing barbaric
invasions from the north, and fifty years of relentless civil war tarnished the image and
reputation of Rome. Manpower shortages due to plague sharply decreased trade and commerce.
Persians penetrated eastern territories and northern Germanic tribes overran the Balkans, Greece,
and Asia Minor simultaneously with Frankish incursions in Gaul and Spain. The strong
monarchy and "good emperors" of the second century devolved into anarchy under the military
regimes of the third century; Roman government was disrupted as any military leader who had
enough strength and persuasion could (and did) become emperor. Between 235-284 AD, twentytwo individuals, only two of whom who did not die violently, sat upon the Roman throne.
While the Empire deteriorated, the structure of Christianity gained strength in the third century,
as it moved away from the looseness and democratic administration of the first and second
centuries. Christianity now appealed to the entire spectrum of society, as the educated and landed
aristocracy as well as the peasant and merchant classes, sought a more personal relationship with
a deity than was offered by the Roman gods. The role of bishop was crucial to Christian
administrative reform: bishops were still chosen by the community in the second century, but
assumed more authority as they served as leaders, with presbyters as priests subject to the
bishop's control. By the third century, bishops were simply approved by the congregation after
being nominated by the clergy, and consecrated in office. The Church had created a hierarchy, a
government within a government, which captured the attention of Roman officials. These effects
rippled into Britain, but made a lesser impact on the island isolated from events occurring
throughout the continental empire.
As Christianity became more organized and gained momentum throughout Roman society, some
emperors replied with systematic persecutions. Decius, in 249, was the first to blame the
Christians' refusal to sacrifice to Roman gods for the ills befalling the empire. The persecutions
were only slightly successful. Emperors in the third century attempted like solutions and were
frustrated by lack of enforcement by local officials. Persecutions lasted until the closing years of
the reign of Diocletian (284-305), but even he was forced to admit that Christianity had grown in
influence to the point that it must, at least, be tolerated.
Roman civilization continued to unravel in the fourth and fifth centuries; Christianity grew ever
stronger, poised to supplant the authority of the disintegrating empire. The emperor Constantine
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(306-337), in the Edict of Milan in 313, granted official tolerance to Christianity and was
honored as the first Christian emperor, although he was not baptized until the end of his life.
With the exception of the three year reign of Julian (360-363), all subsequent emperors claimed
Christianity as their religion. In the reign of Theodosius "the Great" (378-395), Christianity was
made the official state religion. Christians in official posts quickly used their new found
influence to outlaw pagan practices, such as ritual sacrifice; pagan temples, idols, and altars were
destroyed as well. Some degree of Eastern mysticism and aristocratic philosophy remained for
several decades, but Christianity had, in fact, triumphed.
The Roman empire was split in half once again (as it was under Diocletian's reforms) in 364 by
brother-emperors Valentinian I and Valens in order to better defend the empire from increasing
encroachments. The western portion, under the control of Valentinian I and his successors, lasted
barely one century, while the eastern sector survived for seven hundred years. Constant pressure
from northern barbarians crippled the western empire; the Huns invaded Italy and Germanic
tribes sacked Rome twice by the mid-fifth century. In 476, the western empire was extinguished
- Emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed by Odavacar, a Germanic chieftain. The eastern
empire continued in the new capitol city of Constantinople (ancient Byzantium), but was
gradually transformed from Roman to Byzantine in nature.
Church structure underwent further expansion as Christianity grew in the fourth and fifth
centuries; bishops became crucial to Church administration. The position of bishop evolved from
the president or chief priest of each Christian community, as these high-level priests assumed
administrative functions within the growing communities. At first, bishops' duties included
administering the sacraments of baptism and communion, but as the bishops' administrative areas
increased, these duties fell on priests. The primary concern for priests was the parish. Each major
city of the empire came to have its own bishop and became known as a bishopric, approximately
equal in size to a Roman city-state
СРСП-35
The Development of Christian Society
in Early England
Part 2
Bishops came to exert great power by the end of the fourth century, revealing the alterations that
had occurred in Church-state relations throughout the empire. Ambrose of Milan went so far as
to refuse communion to Emperor Theodosius on two occasions, setting an important precedent
with major implications for the future: the Church was now able to exercise authority over the
state in matters of faith and morality. Some time in the third century (a precise date is unknown),
Apostolic Succession was employed for determining the legitimacy of bishops. A bishop's rank
was dependent on whether or not he had received consecration through a succession of bishops
traceable back to an Apostle. Such high ranking bishops were believed to have inherited their
power in a direct line from an Apostle, and the successive passing of office in this manner led to
the establishment of sees (from the Latin sedes , seat; a see was the territory of higher order
bishops).
The clustering of bishoprics together along imperial provincial lines, with archbishops at the
head of each province, imitated Diocletian's political reforms. The patriarchs (bishops of the
widest influence) were the highest level, representing the greatest cities in Christendom - one
each in Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. The founding of Constantinople as the seat of the
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Eastern Empire, however, required the creation of a fourth patriarch, and with the official
addition of Jerusalem as a holy see (seat of Christian administration) in 451, the number of
patriarchs grew to five. Patriarchal rivalry would come to cause great consternation within
Christendom.
Christianity spread to the furthest reaches of the empire in the fourth century, but controversy
surfaced during the expansion. Varying interpretations of scripture and differences in doctrine
created conflicting pockets of Christianity. Donatus, a priest in north Africa, challenged the
validity of sacraments (the earthly manifestation of receiving God's grace) offered by immoral
priests, or priests who denied the faith under persecution. Arius, a priest from the Egyptian city
of Alexandria, challenged the divine nature of Jesus Christ. His followers, called Arians,
maintained that Jesus Christ must have been created by God, and was thus inferior to God.
Arianism was directly refuted by Athanasius' argument that Jesus was both human and divine.
Christ's human/divine nature proved immensely important to early Christians, and was
Constantine's impetus for convening the Council of Nicea in 325. The council condemned
Arianism, agreeing with Athanasius' assertion that Christ was "of the same substance" as God.
Donatism was similarly dispatched by the church in 411, when it was decreed that the moral
condition of a priest had no bearing on the validity of the sacraments, as long as the
priest had been properly ordained. These and other heresies served to consolidate Christian
doctrine.
Several other important developments of enduring influence on Christendom occurred in this
period. Rivalries between patriarchs, especially those of Rome and Constantinople, erupted as
clergy exerted more control over temporal affairs. Through the machinations of several Roman
bishops, the Roman patriarch rose to the prominent position of Pope (taken from the Latin papa,
or father). The argument for papal supremacy centered on Peter being the chief Apostle (a
questionable interpretation of a passage in the Gospel of Matthew), and his position as first
bishop of Rome: all subsequent Roman bishops were deemed Peter's successors. By no means
was this universally accepted. Since the Church, however, was organized on an imperial pattern
with Rome as a familiar administrative center, it was simple to transfer secular power to its
spiritual leadership.
Many early Christians (particularly in the west) sought knowledge from the Bible alone, casting
off the classical heritage of traditional Greco-Roman thought and philosophy. Equating classical
thought with the pagan practices of the dying empire, they strove to avoid contact with such
humanism. With the spread of Christianity into the eastern regions of the empire in the third and
fourth centuries, eastern converts tried to reconcile Christianity and classical education in order
to clarify doctrinal issues. Greek became the language of eastern Christians, the New Testament
was written in Greek - and Christians turned to Greek thought to express the complications of
Christian theology.
The union of classical thought, classical education, and Christian theology found its most
profound expression in Augustine, bishop of Hippo (354-430). He produced volumes dedicated
to every aspect of Christian life; most influential were the Confessions , an account of his
worldliness before being converted, and City of God , an expression of Christian principles as
applied to government. Augustine agreed that philosophy could reveal some truth, but divine
revelation was necessary for an understanding of complete truth. The slavic Jerome (345-420)
was the greatest scholar of the early Church fathers: his extensive knowledge of Hebrew, Greek,
and Latin, allowed him to translate both the Old and New Testaments into Latin, creating the
Latin Vulgate , the standard biblical text of the medieval Catholic church. Augustine and Jerome
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utilized classical tradition and pagan culture to further Christian theology, leaving their imprint
on Christianity for the next millennium.
One final development, which was to have major influence on the development of British
Christianity, was the institution of monasticism. Monasticism, from the Greek monachos (alone),
surfaced as ecclesiastics sought refuge from mass conversions of the third century- many of
which occurred as means to avoid the persecution of pagans or to gain the practical economic
and cultural advantages of Christianity in the later Empire, and the increasing corruption of the
now wealthy clergy. Monks abandoned society and devoted themselves entirely to their own
salvation through fasting, frequent prayer, and isolation in the wilderness. These monks believed
self-denial was the true expression of piety and the path that led to God. Such asceticism went to
extremes in the east, as monks' increasingly erratic behavior brought about the opposite of their
original intention - they actually drew crowds. As monasticism filtered westward, it was refined:
Western monks were more concerned with living lives free from earthly corruption, but refrained
from the outrageous actions of their eastern brothers. By the early fifth century, many
monasteries (communities of monks) had been established.
Monasticism became the bastion of classical learning and culture throughout Europe. Candidates
studied hard to be ordained, and many monks poured over Latin and Greek manuscripts in their
studies and work. The chief monk was the abbot, who had full authority over the activities and
members of the monastery. For the first time on an official scale, women were included: nuns
and monks lived and worked under the guidance of a common rule and a common leader in the
so-called double monastery. In many double monasteries, men were subordinated to a female
leader (an abbess) and used to lead worship (under Catholic doctrine only males could be priests)
and as a labor force. Many abbesses, especially those in Anglo-Saxon England, were from royal
houses and controlled vast territories and thousands of people. Abbots and abbesses ruled the
community, and became instrumental in the development of towns in the Middle Ages.
Structurally, politically, spiritually, and historically, monasticism served as a link between
Greco-Roman civilization and the Renaissance.
In the late fourth and early fifth centuries, Roman legions were evacuated from Britain to the
continent to resist increasing barbarian invasion. Up to that point, Britain was still a province of
Rome, with Christianity the official religion of Roman citizens. Although still a minority in the
whole of the island, Christianity had made an impact in the southern, more romanized regions of
Britain. In fact, early British Christians also endured some degree of persecution. Albanus of
Verulamium was killed in a campaign that resulted in the destruction of many churches, and later
canonized as a martyr by English Catholics. The accepted, but disputed, date for Albanus'
martyrdom is 209 AD. Aaron and Julius of Caerlon were likewise murdered in Christian
persecutions. The British Church was sufficiently organized by 314 to warrant representation at
the Council of Arles, although there is no indication that British Christianity had any official
capacity within Roman Christendom. No British representatives attended the Council of Nicea in
325 or the Council of Sardica in 343, but the British Church accepted and enforced the resulting
condemnation of Arianism. At least three British bishops attended the Council of Ariminum in
360, but were too poor to pay their own expenses. These disconnected pieces of evidence imply,
but do not prove, a strong Christian presence in Britain before the province was released from
imperial attachments in the fifth century.
The first indication of the independent nature of British Christianity occurred in the first years of
the fifth century. Pelagius, a British priest residing in Italy, expressed the belief that man was
responsible directly to God for his actions, grace was attained through the effort to abide by the
law of God, without direct intervention by governmental or ecclesiastic authority. This was
contrary to the views of Augustine in the City of God , where a Christian government directed
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the activities if its citizens. The debate raged long after the death of both men, and had serious
implications in the Christianizing of the British Isles. The Venerable Bede, an eighth century
British monk and scholar, revealed that Irish monks still clung to Pelagian theory well into the
seventh century. (Bede's Ecclesiastic History of the English People remains the primary source
of both the spiritual and cultural history of the Anglo-Saxon era).
In Roman Britain, Christianity took root in the poorer ranks of society living outside the highly
Romanized towns. Such areas in the south were still within the sphere of Roman influence, but
in spite of three centuries of Imperial rule, the majority of Christians in Britain were of Celtic
background. When Rome abandoned Britain, both spiritually and politically, the majority of
British Christians fled to the west amid the onslaught of Angle, Saxon, and Jute invasions.
Isolated from Roman Christianity until St. Augustine's mission in 597 AD, the period was a
turning point in the further development of Christianity in England.
Fifth century monasticism proved to be the leading factor in the Christianization of the British
Isles. Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from pagan northern Germany invaded and easily conquered the
central and southern regions of England after Roman troops withdrew. Roman Christians fled to
Wales, incorporating native pagan rituals and holidays into their faith to synthesize a unique
brand of Welsh Christianity. Welsh Christians, in turn, felt little desire to attempt the conversion
of the Germanic tribes. After driving the Britons into Wales, the invading barbarians turned their
attention to the Scots and Picts, driving them into the Scottish highlands. Native culture, whether
Celtic or Roman, was virtually abandoned in the English territory. At the same time, the
monastic movement of Roman Christianity became increasingly evangelistic, sending
missionaries into remote locations untouched by the empire. In this period, monasteries and
convents became involved in local affairs, converting native peoples while establishing a link to
classical culture and education. With Roman culture all but vanished and the Picts and Scots
exiled to the northernmost regions, Christian monasticism arrived in Ireland in the form of Saint
Patrick.
Patrick (c.390-461) was born of Christian Briton parents, but was kidnapped at age sixteen as a
laborer by Irish slave traders. He endured six years of isolation as a shepherd, spending the time
in prayer and reaching out to the Holy Spirit. Prompted by a vision, he escaped to the continent
on an Irish ship, but finally made his way home to Britain. His parents welcomed him, but
another vision compelled him to travel to Gaul and enroll in a monastery (probably the
monastery in Lerins) in preparation for missionary work in Ireland. After successful completion
of his studies, he was ordained as a priest and bishop. Patrick's experiences as a carefree
Romano-British teenager, an isolated slave and holy man in Ireland and classically trained monk
set the stage for a unique twist in Christianity, especially within the British Isles.
Upon his return from the continent in 432, Patrick proceeded at once to Ireland. He accepted the
Irish people just as they were, both men and women, and genuinely loved his adopted people.
Patrick established many monasteries and bishoprics throughout all but southern Ireland. He
succeeded in his mission to Ireland on many different levels: he converted thousands of
individuals, established church structure, and persuaded the Irish people - especially Irish kings that faithfulness, courage, and generosity could replace the sword as the primary instrument of
organizing a society. Patrick spoke of the evils of slavery, which was abolished in Ireland shortly
after his death. He had considerably less success with his British brothers. Petty Anglo-Saxon
warlords established kingdoms throughout Britain upon the evacuation of the remaining Roman
legion. Coroticus, a west coast king, invaded the coast of northern Ireland and destroyed entire
communities, carting away Patrick's converts by the thousands. The Roman Christians in Wales
were no help to Patrick as they viewed the emerging Celtic Christianity with contempt and were
snobbish to the Irish monk. Irish monasticism continued to thrive despite these early setbacks.
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СРСП-36
The Development of Christian Society
in Early England
Part 3
Celtic Christianity developed differently than Roman Christianity. Ireland was never part of the
Roman Empire and remained somewhat isolated from the continent, even after Patrick's mass
conversions. Catholic structure had been based on a model of Roman government that was
unknown in Ireland. Monasteries, rather than bishoprics, became the fundamental unit of Celtic
Christianity, with abbots exerting far more influence than bishops. By the sixth century, Irish
monasticism exhibited outward signs of these differences. Celtic monks were ascetics, practicing
strenuous fasts and meditation under severe privation. Confession of sin became common, so
much that Irish monks wrote manuals dedicated to dispatching appropriate penitentials for
various sins. Remaining isolated from the continent prevented the corruption of the Latin
language that occurred in European monasteries. The Irish fervor for learning encouraged
writing, and Celtic monks provided beautiful manuscripts illustrated with geometric patterns,
Celtic images, and Oriental elements passed down from the original monasteries in the east. The
most profound difference between Celtic and Roman monasticism, however, was found in the
very nature of each community. Continental monasteries were refuges from the world, and by
the mid-fifth century, under rules established by Saint Benedict of Nursia; such Benedictine
monasteries favored moderation over asceticism, the absolute authority of the abbot, and
communal living and worship among brethren.
Celtic Christianity, like Welsh Christianity, was shaped much more by local concerns and
compromise with the natives. Ireland had few walls and divided pastures, war was the sport of
kings, Celtic women fought like Amazons, and marriage, as an institution, was largely ignored.
Irish monasticism employed select Druidic elements: monastic communities petitioned clans for
land grants in return for educating the clan's youth in the priestly arts. Authority became
hereditary, as bishops and priests were allowed to administer sacraments, but were recruited and
directed by powerful abbots and abbesses. Celtic monks shaved their heads in the Druidic
tradition, and the Roman date for Easter was slightly altered to coincide with local fertility
festivals. Irish monasticism, however, possessed one feature which was lacking, up to the sixth
century, in both Welsh and Roman Christianity: Celtic Christianity encouraged missionary work
throughout the world.
The first new wave of Christianity since the conversions of Roman British citizens in the fourth
century began with the founding of a new Celtic monastery on the island of Iona, just off the
western coast of Scotland. Established in 563 by Saint Columba, a Celtic monk, Iona proved to
be pivotal in christianizing Scotland and northern England. Columba himself was almost singlehandedly responsible for the conversion of the Picts, with nine successive abbots of his clan
converting virtually all of Scotland and nearly two-thirds of England. Continental missionary
work also sprang from Columba's monastery in Iona: Saint Columbanus, a young monk, took
twelve disciple monks to northern Italy and founded a monastery in Bobbio. As the Irish monks
converted the north, a second wave of missionary work, Roman in nature, commenced in the
south in 597.
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Gregory the Great, the highly influential pope of 590-604, dispatched Augustine (later to gain
sainthood) to England with the express purpose of converting the Saxon kings of south England.
Augustine landed in Thanet, immediately targeting the Kentish king, Ethelbert, whose wife was
a Frankish Christian. Ethelbert's baptism inspired the conversion of a sizable majority of
subjects: the trend of subjects following a king's conversion became a common thread of the
spread of Christianity in southern England (the same trend resurfaced during the English
reformation, under the reigns of Tudor monarchs). Augustine established a monastery in
Canterbury, from which the southern conversions flourished, and which was to become the most
powerful seat of Christianity in Britain. Paulinus, of Augustine's original party, became a
member of King Edwin's Northumbrian court, through connection's with Edwin's Christian wife.
Edwin and his subjects converted, but pressures from Mercia provided the impetus for still
another trend in the Christianization of England.
The kingdom of Mercia, ruled by Penda, practiced Norse pagan religions, but sought an alliance
with Welsh Christians in its struggle for supremacy over Northumbria. Mercia triumphed, with
two Northumbrian kings, Edwin and Oswald, losing their lives in the struggle. Mercian
paganism became the official religion of the kingdom. This trend continued throughout the
seventh century, as pagan and Christian kingdoms fought for dominance, several kingdoms
vacillated between paganism and Christianity as power shifted among the Saxon kingdoms. Of
special note, however, is the leniency which the pagan kings showed to Christians: Christians
were allowed to worship as they pleased, a courtesy which was not extended to pagans when
Christian kingdoms triumphed.
The first half of the seventh century is one of the most important periods in British ecclesiastic
history. Gregory and his disciples acknowledged the wisdom of incorporating native fertility and
harvest rituals into the list of Christian holidays; Roman Christianity established a firm hold on
southern England. With Canterbury as its base, Roman Christianity quickly spread northward to
confront Celtic Christianity. Aidan of Iona founded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in
635, and two of his monks, Benedict Biscop and Wilfrid, were instrumental in winning
Northumbria to Celtic Christianity. Lindisfarne, even more than Iona, became a center for
training and education: the most famous illuminated manuscript of Celtic monasticism, the
Lindisfarne Gospels, was completed in 700. Paganism was in the final stages of its vitality as
religious controversy moved from the basis of paganism versus Christianity to Roman versus
Celtic Christianity.
Arguments over the proper calendar dates for feasts and differences in discipline raged
throughout England during the mid-seventh century. Welsh and Roman Christians addressed the
issues without resolution on the banks of the Severn in the 640's, but Roman and Celtic
Christians lacked the motivation and flexibility to resolve the conflict until the Synod of Whitby
in 664. Held in Northumbria at the behest of King Oswy, the meeting carried political, as well as
religious, overtones.
Wilfrid traveled to Italy after the establishment of the monastery at Lindisfarne and became a
firm proponent of uniting Rome and England. At Whitby, Wilfrid spoke on behalf of Roman
Christianity, maintained that all of Christendom, with the exception of the two small islands,
agreed on doctrine as espoused by Rome. Oswy, under the influence of a new generation of
fervent Roman Christian princes, ruled in favor of Roman Christianity. His decision, in large
part, must be attributed to an effort to solidify alliances with the kingdoms of Wessex, Essex, and
Kent, against Mercia. A gradual fusion of Celtic and Roman Christianity ensued: the Archbishop
of Canterbury was made the highest ranking ecclesiastic in Britain, with the various bishops and
monasteries subordinated to his authority, and Roman dates were employed to delineate
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holidays. The missionary and intellectual work of Celtic monasticism, however, was allowed to
thrive.
The Whitby decision was irrevocable, but not irrefutable. The Welsh church, for example, failed
to come to terms until 738, and pockets of resistance lasted until the ninth century. England
under a united Christianity, however, was a powerful component of the medieval church.
Theodore of Tarsus was appointed to carry out the successful parish reorganization of England.
English monasticism was saved as an important training institution for further missionary work
and remained the main depository of intellectual activities throughout the Middle Ages. Three
monks from monasteries established by Benedict Biscop became highly influential members of
Christendom: the previously mentioned Bede; Saint Boniface, whose work included conversion
of the Frisians and Swabians in Germany; and Alcuin of York, who carried Christianity and
intellectualism into the illiterate court of the Frankish king, Charlemagne. England was to remain
an essential part of Roman Catholicism until the marital antics of Henry VIII in the sixteenth
century.
Several comparisons can be made between the development of Christianity in both the Roman
Empire and England. In most instances, Christianity took root in the peasant classes (as was the
case in Roman Britain), filtering up into higher social orders as it became more acceptable. After
the mass conversions of the second and third centuries, the aristocracy saw Christianity as
fashionable, and such superficial conversions had an influence on the development of
monasticism. Prior to the flowering of Christianity in the Empire, social changes were initiated
by the upper echelons of society and traveled downward through the lower castes, the majority
of the Anglo-Saxon conversions occurred as subjects followed the lead of their kings. Cultural
clashes developed different interpretations of scripture in both civilizations, and the subsequent
disparity of doctrine, as well as compromise with native peoples in the course of the conversion
process, created conflicts and controversies. The largest difference between Roman and English
Christianity occurred in the development of monasticism, and this contrast remained throughout
the entire medieval period: British monasticism remained dedicated to classical thought while
continental monasticism was corrupted through increasing contact with native civilizations and
migrant Germanic tribes. England proved to be a microcosm of Christendom as a whole.
СРСП-37
The Structure of the Church in Britain
The Church of England is the successor of the medieval church in England. It has its own
liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer dating from 1549 and the Alternative Service Book which
was introduced in 1980. It is divided into two provinces, Canterbury in the south and York in the
north of England. The archbishops of these respective provinces are the two most senior clergy
in the Church. Each province contains a number of dioceses, defined administrative areas
presided over by a bishop who has exclusive jurisdiction within it. The province of Canterbury
has 30 dioceses, including the Diocese of Europe, and the province of York has 14.
The dioceses are further divided into archdeaconries, deaneries and parishes. An archdeaconry,
headed by an archdeacon appointed by the bishop, may include the whole of a diocese, but is
usually smaller. A deanery, presided over by a dean, is a collection of parishes within an
archdeaconry. The smallest administrative unit in the Church of England is the parish. There are
13,150 of these, covering the length and breadth of England. The majority of the Church's 13,920
clergy are involved in parish ministry.
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Each diocese has its own bishop, who is responsible for its spiritual leadership, and is centered
upon a cathedral church. With the exceptions of the cathedrals of Coventry, Guildford and
Liverpool (all of which were completed in the post-war period) these are ancient buildings,
originated before 1500.
The church nominates two candidates to fill each vacancy of and archbishop or bishop. One of
these candidates is then appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister. The two
archbishops, the bishops of London, Durham and Winchester, together with 21 other bishops in
order of seniority, sit in the House of Lords. Clergy of the Church of England, in common with
those of the Church of Scotland, the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church may not
sit in the House of Commons.
The Church of England has its own central governing and legislative body, the General Synod.
This has three houses, one for the diocesan bishops, while the other two are made up respectively
of elected representatives of the clergy and the laity of the Church. Lay people are also involved
in church government in the parishes. The various organizations within the Church report to the
Synod on such matters as the mission of the clergy and laity, missionary work, inter-church
relations, social questions, the care of church buildings, education and recruitment and training
for the ministry. Measures passed by the General Synod are scrutinized by Parliament's
ecclesiastical committee, which consists of members drawn from both Houses. However, the
committee can only accept or reject the measures placed before it, it does not have the power to
amend them.
The Church of England is part of a worldwide communion of Anglican churches. These are
similar in organization and worship to the Church of England and originated from it. Links
between the components of the Anglican Communion are maintained by the Lambeth
Conference of Anglican bishops held every ten years, and the Anglican Consultative Council, on
which lay people and clergy are also represented, which meets every two to three years.
There are three of these sister churches in the other parts of the British Isles, the Church of
Ireland, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Church in Wales. The first and last of these were
disestablished in 1869 and 1921 respectively, and there is now no established Church in either
Wales or Northern Ireland. Each of these Churches is governed separately by its own
institutions, as are the other Churches in the Anglican Communion. This has led to a number of
differences developing between them, of which the most obvious example is in attitudes to the
ordination of women. A number of Anglican churches around the world now ordain women as
priests. The Church of Ireland, has ordained women since 1991. The Church of England's
General Synod voted in 1992 to allow the ordination of women, and the first such ordinations
took place in Spring 1994.
The Church of Scotland and the Free Churches
The Reformation in Scotland led to the replacement of the medieval church by one which is
presbyterian in form. That is, it has no bishops but is governed by its ministers and elders. While
it is an established Church, the State has always recognized the complete freedom of the Church
in all matters of doctrine, worship and church government.
Both men and women may join the ministry, which is, as in the Church of England, exercised
through a network of parishes across the country. There are about 1,600 of these parishes, which
are governed locally by Kirk Sessions, consisting of ministers and elders. Above the Kirk
Session are 47 Presbyteries. These select a number of ministers and ruling elders, varying
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according to the size of the Presbytery, to sit on the General Assembly. This meets annually
under the presidency of an elected Moderator who serves for one year. The Sovereign is usually
represented at the General Assembly by the Lord High Commissioner.
There are a number of Presbyterian churches which are independent of the Church of Scotland,
particularly in parts of the Highlands and Islands. There are also Presbyterian churches
elsewhere in Britain. The Presbyterian Church of Ireland is the largest Protestant church in
Northern Ireland, and there are a number of smaller Presbyterian bodies in the Province. The
Presbyterian Church of Wales (also known as the Calvinistic Methodist Church) is the largest of
the Free Churches in Wales. The Presbyterian Church of England is now part of the United
Reformed Church.
The term "Free Churches" is used to describe those Protestant churches in Britain which, unlike
the Churches of England and Scotland, are not established churches. While their historical
experience has given these churches a shared sense of identity, they vary greatly in doctrine,
worship and government. All the major Free Churches, Methodist, Baptist, United Reformed and
Salvation Army, allow both men and women to become ministers. The largest of the Free
Churches is the Methodist Church with about a million members, followed by the Baptist church
and United Reformed Church
СРСП-38
Glastonbury Abbey
The Legends of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea
n any comprehensive discussion of the early legends of Britain, the name of Glastonbury Abbey must certainly come
up. Over the years, the abbey has become the gravitational center of Britain's legendary universe, largely because of its
role in the creation and development of the legends of Joseph of Arimathea and King Arthur. We will attempt to show
how and why the abbey came to play the role that it did and to evaluate the importance of Joseph and Arthur to
Glastonbury's place of prominence. Along the way, we have found it necessary to make certain speculations. We have
endeavored to ensure that none of them are of the "wild and baseless" variety, but they are speculations, nonetheless, and we have
tried to label them as such.
Joseph, a Jew from the town of Arimathea, was an early first century figure who played a small supporting role in the swirl of
events surrounding Christ's crucifixion, as recounted for us in the Biblical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (1). Arthur
was the great King of the Britons, according to legend, who successfully led his armies against the Saxon invaders of his
homeland, and who established his glorious and far-reaching empire based on the, then revolutionary principles of nobility and
chivalry.
Joseph, so far as we know, never set foot outside the Holy Land, and if he did, there is certainly no reliable evidence that he ever
ventured so far from home as Britain. Arthur, at least in the imperial form delineated by his legend, never existed at all.
Somehow, though, these two men, so separate from each other in time and space, have become inextricably entwined with the
history and affairs of Glastonbury Abbey and should be considered inseparable from it and from each other. The purpose of this
article is to examine exactly how and why that came to be so.
Glastonbury Abbey was established as a Benedictine monastery, under Beorhtwald, its first Saxon abbot, during the years 670 to
678 AD (2). Prior to that time, it had existed, for many years, as a Celitc religious center. On the site there stood a church
153
constructed of "wattle and daub," said by local legends to have been dedicated by Jesus, Himself, in honour of his mother, Mary.
William of Malmesbury, a historian regarded highly by modern scholars, was a guest of the abbey for a period of time during the
third decade of the twelfth century. He called this structure "the oldest church in England," and, henceforth, it was known simply
as the Old Church, serving as a symbol for the ancientness of Glastonbury's Christianity.
By Malmesbury's time, the story of the origins of the Old Church had been completely lost to history. Legend, though, was able
to supply the missing information, attributing its construction to two early missionaries sent from Rome. In his "History of the
English Church and People," written in the early eighth century, the Venerable Bede provides us with some useful background
information:
In the year of our Lord's Incarnation 156, Marcus Antoninus Verus, fourteenth after Augustus, became coEmperor with his brother Aurelius Commodus. During their reign, and while the holy Eleutherius ruled the
Roman Church, Lucius, a British king, sent him a letter, asking to be made a Christian. This pious request
was quickly granted, and the Britons held the Faith which they received in all its purity and fullness until the
time of the Emperor Diocletian. (3)
Bede (c.673-735), a monk at the monastery of Jarrow in Northumberland, was the first scholar to record the history of the coming
of Christianity to Britain. In the above account, Bede gives us several historical calibrations, although there are several
difficulties with the names and dates he gives us. The first difficulty is that there never was a Roman Emperor named Marcus
Antoninus Verus. The name seems to be a composite of actual emperors named Antoninus Pius (138-61), Marcus Aurelius (16180), Lucius Verus (161-9). The co-Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus were followed by Commodus in 180. Another
small problem is that the first of these three emperors, Antoninus Pius, was fifteenth from Augustus, not fourteenth.
According to modern scholarship, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus became co-Emperors in 161 AD (4). Bede gives us the date
in another form, however. He tells us they became co-Emperors "In the year of our Lord's Incarnation 156." If true, that would
put Christ's birth in 5 AD, a date considerably at variance with the commonly accepted date of 4-3 BC. Also, in the passage
above, we are told that a British king, Lucius, made a request to the pope in Rome "during their reign" (the co-Emperors, Marcus
Aurelius and Lucius Verus, jointly reigned during the years 161-9). The name of the pope to whom the British king appealed is
named Eleutherius. Our final difficulty with Bede's report becomes clear when we see that Eleutherius held his papal throne
during the years 175-89 AD and did not overlap the co-Emperorship of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, at all.
All this is not to question Bede's reliability as an historian, but merely to point out the pitfalls in coming to hard and fast
conclusions based on early sources. To provide a continuous account of how things had come to be, Bede was forced to deal with
some areas of history where few, if any, reliable sources were found. In the preface to his "History," he states:
Should the reader discover any inaccuracies in what I have written, I humbly beg that he will not impute
them to me, because, as the laws of history require, I have laboured honestly to transmit whatever I could
ascertain from common report for the instruction of posterity. (5)
Bede's preface acknowledges the assistance the author had received from various churchmen of his day in the preparation of his
"History." He recognizes the Abbot Albinus; Nothelm, a priest of the church of London; the brethren of Lastingham monastery;
the most reverend Abbot Esi. No matter how careful Bede's own investigations, one is left to speculate on the degree of academic
rigour applied to the historical studies of those men. One possible early source that Bede may have used is the "Liber
Pontificalis," literally, "Book of the Popes," a collection of papal biographies believed to have been compiled by a Roman
presbyter at the time of Boniface II (530-2). The point is that if Bede, with his sound historical method and closer time proximity,
had trouble sorting out this material, then we must be especially careful in drawing our own conclusions.
In any case, the intervening four hundred years between Bede and William of Malmesbury saw some additions to the story,
including the names of the two missionaries and a mention of the Old Church.
William tells us in "De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae" (Enquiry into the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury), a work
composed while he was a guest of Glastonbury Abbey, that in response to King Lucius' request, Pope Eleutherius dispatched the
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missionaries, Faganus and Deruvianus (Phagan and Deruvian), to the island of Britain to preach the Gospel. Whatever the precise
date of the mission, William puts the time somewhere past the middle of the second century AD. Coming from the continent, the
missionaries would probably have landed somewhere in Kent, and must have worked their way toward the west, preaching as
they went. On their westward journey, William tells us that they came to Glastonbury, where they constructed a church (6).
There are now no extant copies of William of Malmesbury's "De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae," but what we know of its
original text comes from another of William's writings, the "Gesta Regis Anglorum" (Deeds of the Kings of England) into which
large sections of the "De Antiquitate" had been transcribed. The earliest version of the "De Antiquitate" that has come down to us
is a thirteenth century interpolation by the Glastonbury monks which adds significant "embroidery" not present in the original
document.
For example, the later interpolations tell us that Phagan and Deruvian,
. . .came to Britain, as the Charter of St. Patrick and the Deeds of the Britons attest. Proclaiming the word of
life, they cleansed the king and his people at the sacred font in 166 AD (7).
The interpolated version also does not claim that Phagan and Deruvian were the original builders of the church at
Glastonbury, but that they merely restored an existing church that they had found there. At first glance, this change of
story seems to be disadvantageous to the abbey. Monastic houses of the middle ages, as we shall see, were proud of their
traditions and were ardent in the veneration of their founders. Glastonbury Abbey, at least in the time of William of
Malmesbury, seemed satisfied to be able to trace the possibility of its origin back to the second century. Why would the
monks of the thirteenth century, over a hundred years after William had been in residence there, have written Phagan and
Deruvian out of their founding legend? Had they discovered new information or did they have other motivations for doing
so?
СРСП-39
Glastonbury Abbey
The Legends of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea
Part 2
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hile it may seem to be only a minor adjustment to William's original text, the interpolated version of the story
made the date for the construction of the Old Church, and by extension, the beginning of Glastonbury's
Christian community, years earlier than previously claimed. An earlier foundation would go a long way toward
solidifying the abbey's claim to pre-eminence among Britain's religious houses, merely on the basis of its great
antiquity. But how much earlier could they plausibly claim the founding of their abbey to have been? And if it had been founded
earlier than the time of Phagan and Deruvian, then who could they claim as their original founder?
In the original version of "De Antiquitate," William opens the door for a creative solution to the monks' dilemma when he writes:
There are documents of no small credit, which have been discovered in certain places to the following effect:
'No other hands than those of the disciples of Christ erected the church of Glastonbury.' Nor is it dissonant
from probability; for if Philip, the Apostle, preached to the Gauls, as Freculphus relates in the fourth chapter
of his second book, it may be believed that he planted the word on this side of the Channel also. But, that I
may not seem to balk the expectations of my readers by vain imaginations, I shall leave all doubtful matter
and proceed to the relation of substantial truths. (8)
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The author seems to be saying that there existed, perhaps in the abbey's archives, unspecified documents which could be
construed as supporting an Apostolic foundation (the most prestigious kind) for the abbey. He speculates on the possibility of the
validity of an earlier tradition that there had been a first century Apostolic mission to Gaul led by the Apostle Philip (Freculphus,
an early ninth century continental chronicler, repeated a claim made in the 630's by Isidore of Seville about Philip's mission to
Gaul). William reasoned that, if that were true, then it would not have been out of the question for a satellite mission to Britain to
have been sent out from Philip's team. William refused to go beyond that, being careful to keep his feet on more substantial
ground (the implication being that he considered this to be insubstantial ground).
William's purpose in writing the "De Antiquitate" was to tell the true story of Glastonbury Abbey. The later interpolators of his
work apparently had an expanded agenda, for in their treatment of the same subject, they said:
St. Philip, as Freculph attests in the fourth chapter of his second book, came to the land of the Franks where
he converted many to the faith by his preaching and baptised them. Desiring to spread the word of Christ
further, he sent twelve of his disciples into Britain to teach the word of life. It is said that he appointed as
their leader his very dear friend, Joseph of Arimathea, who had buried the Lord. They came to Britain in 63
AD, the fifteenth year after the assumption of the blessed Mary, and confidently began to preach the faith of
Christ. (9)
In a bold stroke, the monkish interpolators of William of Malmesbury's "De Antiquitate" pushed back the origin of their abbey
more than a hundred years beyond the earliest date that had ever been claimed for it. The monks of Glastonbury had a very welldeveloped sense of pride in their house and never saw themselves as anything but pre-eminent among the religious communities
in the land. If they had allowed the story of Phagan and Deruvian to remain the official version of their founding, then they would
have had to share that same founding story with every other Christian community that traced their origins back to the journey of
those evangelistic missionaries through Britain.
Now, however, Glastonbury's foundation predated them all by more than a century. From the monks' point of view, there was
another benefit to the rewriting of their monastery's accepted history. Since Phagan and Deruvian were emmisaries of Rome, any
converts they made on their journey would have been beholden to Rome, its pope and its representatives, in perpetuity.
Glastonbury had had many Celtic connections over the centuries as a result of its great antiquity and its geographical location in
the west of England. The abbey's pantheon of saintly associations (personal visits, relics and burials) included mostly men and
women from Celtic traditions. Celtic Christianity tended to be less structured, less formal, more monastic, more independent and
more resistant to outside control. All of these characteristics of the Celtic church were in opposition to the main emphases of the
Roman brand of Christianity, and as its later history would demonstrate, Glastonbury would keep whatever distance it could from
Rome. A non-Roman foundation, then, would be seen as highly desirable, and this "corrected" version of their founding legend
gave that to them.
So far, we seem to be on solid ground. We can see what the monks of Glastonbury did and can speculate as to why they did it.
But, all that we think we understand of their plans and motives is called into question by the man they chose as their founder,
Joseph of Arimathea. What could have possessed the monks to make such a choice? Joseph had never been mentioned in any of
the abbeys early writings. He had hardly been mentioned in any writings of the early Christian fathers. He had no stature in the
early Christian community, there were no exciting deeds attributed to him, there were no Biblical reports of his activities after
Christ's resurrection and no traditions of his leading great missionary journeys. He simply had no cachet. Worse, still, was the
fact that he was not accepted as an Apostle. There were many other, more dynamic, better pedigreed people to choose from,
people whose selection as founder would have conferred instant status on the abbey by the very association with their names.
They could have gone right to the top and chosen, for example, the Apostles Paul or Peter. Or, since Philip was believed to have
been in Gaul, why not have him lead the missionary journey across the Channel to Britain? Any of those names carried much
wider recognition and had vastly more spiritual clout than that of Joseph of Arimathea.
Perhaps, the monks were more subtle than we give them credit for. It appears that they understood the basic principle of legend
making very well; the blanker the slate, the more room to write on it, the bigger and better the legend you can create. Joseph
had as blank a slate as anyone could have, and by the standard just stated, he was an ideal choice. We will see how
the abbey used the choice of Joseph of Arimathea to their great advantage in the later middle ages.
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СРСП-40
Glastonbury Abbey
The Legends of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea
Part 3
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ver the first six hundred years of its existence, the abbey at Glastonbury had accumulated vast holdings of land,
often from royal patronage, and was naturally concerned about having documentary support in the form of grants
and charters for these lands. Some say that the abbey forged these documents, in order to prove their claims to the
lands. In the abbey's defense, there may have been genuine traditions about land being given by benefactors in the
past, but without the actual documents, solid proof was lacking. If paper documents were actually forged, it may
have been to serve as tangible evidence of those traditions.
The modern mind rebels at the thought of ecclesiastical forgery to justify claims that may have been of questionable validity. But
to understand this practice fully, we must look at the situation in the monastic community in the century following the Norman
conquest.
Until 1066, the monasteries in England were populated by Anglo-Saxon monks and were under the control of Anglo-Saxon
abbots. All that changed when the Normans came to power on the island. In some cases, the reigning Anglo-Saxon abbot was
immediately deposed and replaced with a Norman counterpart, and in other cases, that replacement was delayed until the AngloSaxon abbot either resigned or died. In all cases where Anglo-Saxons were replaced by Normans, there was some degree of
friction between the two groups. The Normans frequently altered the daily rituals to reflect their own preferences, and in those
cases the language of liturgical use was no longer Anglo-Saxon English, but French. Even the Anglo-Saxon saints were held in
contempt by the Normans. Worse, still, was the common practice of giving away of lands to William the Conqueror's vassals that
had been formerly held by the monasteries, and the concomitant loss of income and prestige.
The response to these affronts ranged from passive to active resistance. An example is that of Glastonbury Abbey in the reign of
its first Norman abbot, Thurstan, who tried to introduce a new chant into the liturgy. It was openly resisted by the Anglo-Saxon
monks with a ferocity which resulted in the killing of at least two monks and perhaps others. Further tragedy was averted by the
reassigning of many of the offended monks to other houses and the return of Abbot Thurstan to his monastic home in Caen,
France (10).
A common defense the Anglo-Saxon monks employed against this growing "Normanization" was to immerse themselves in
nostalgia for their lost past and to take an intense interest in the history of their beloved houses. At this time, in fact, there was a
whole class of professional historians and hagiographers whose services were hired by various monastic communities to compose
flattering histories of their monasteries and to write inspiring accounts of the lives of their saints. William of Malmesbury and
Caradoc of Llancarfan are two of these professionals whose skills were employed by Glastonbury Abbey.
Along with this general monastic interest in history came a desire to be able to justify their claims to the lands they had held
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before the Conquest. If the legitimate charters or grants weren't readily available, then they had to be manufactured. The monks
of Glastonbury Abbey were unusually proficient at the practice, but were by no means alone, as it was quite common during this
time (11).
In 1126, a new abbot was appointed to Glastonbury. His name was Henry of Blois and in his own writings he tells of his
impression that the abbey community was on the point of ruin, with its buildings reminding him of peasant huts and the monks
struggling to get the basic necessities of life. This deterioration had begun, apparently, many years before, during the abbacies of
Aethelweard (1024-53) and Aethelnoth (1053-77) and was exacerbated by the Conquest of 1066. Henry was determined to stop
the erosion of the abbey's wealth and privileges and, perhaps related to this rehabilitation effort, William of Malmesbury was
invited to visit to the abbey in 1129.
William was initially brought to Glastonbury to produce lives of several of the saints traditionally associated with the monastery.
It is not known how many of these lives he was commissioned to write, but during the eleventh century, it is known that many
Celtic saints were venerated at Glastonbury, including Patrick, Gildas, David and Brigit. It is also known that the monks of
Glastonbury wanted William to produce a life of St. Dunstan that would support their contention that Dunstan's body was buried
there.
In those days, holy relics equated with pilgrim revenues, and whatever relics a monastery had were jealously guarded and
promoted. A controversy had arisen between Glastonbury and Canterbury over St. Dunstan (depicted at right). He was a major
saint of that era, whose relics Canterbury had originally housed, but which Glastonbury claimed they had rescued from a Danish
raid on the town of Canterbury, and now possessed. Eadmer of Canterbury had written a taunting letter to the monks of
Glastonbury pointing out that they had no writings to support their claim to Dunstan's body, and it was probably this deficiency
of written proof that the Glastonbury monks wanted William of Malmesbury to redress.
Apparently, William was unable to do this to the monks' satisfaction (whether out of conscience or lack of real proof, we don't
know) and, in an effort to assuage their displeasure, he produced another work entitled "De Antiquitate Glastoniensis," Enquiry
into the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury. This additional work, he claimed in the preface, was even better than a mere life
of Dunstan could ever be, since it aggrandized not only Dunstan, but also glorified the whole long history of the abbey. In his
researches, William apparently found much in the abbey's history that impressed him because he said that the place was "redolent
with divine sanctity" (12).
William of Malmesbury had done his part for Glastonbury Abbey by giving the monks a long history that they could be proud of.
But William's work was just the beginning. More exciting developments would come before the end of the twelfth century.
Our investigation into the great legends of the Abbey continues after the death of Abbot Robert of Winchester in 1180. The
appointment of a new abbot to a monastery was a prerogative of the monarch. The Glastonbury position had been intentionally
left unfilled, as Henry II wanted to absorb the considerable income of the abbey into his own treasury for the purpose of helping
to finance his French wars. Peter de Marcy, a friend of the king, was placed in temporary charge of the abbey and tried to
engineer his own election as abbot. The monks refused, basing their refusal on his reputation for being an "irreligious" man, on
their belief that he had misused church funds and that he had once borne arms in mortal combat.
In an attempt to curry the favour and the electoral support of the monks, de Marcy 'feigned' a Christmas mass in the Old Church
in 1183. From the monks' viewpoint, his act constituted a sacrilege, due to his being in a "state of mortal sin" (for the above
stated reasons), and this, they believed, necessitated a reconsecration of their abbey. It so happened that on St. Urban's Day, May
25, 1184, a great fire utterly destroyed the abbey church and the Old Church of St. Mary's, which had stood adjacent to it (13).
Adam of Domerham, writing a century later, tells us:
What groans, what tears, what beatings of the breast were yielded by spectators, can be imagined only by
those who have suffered similar affliction. The confusion of relics, treasures in silver and gold, silks, books
and other ecclesiastical ornaments might justly provoke grief. More vehement was the woe of the monks
mindful of their earlier happiness, seeing that in all adversity bygone joy is the saddest part of misfortune. (14)
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Peter de Marcy died soon after the fire. The reconstruction of the abbey was begun immediately
and heavily supported by Henry II, financed through the office of his Chamberlain, Radulf. A
new church of St. Mary, also known as the Lady Chapel (see photo at top), went up quickly and
was consecrated in 1186. Henry's death in 1189 ended the abbey's financial support and neither
of his sons, John or Richard, was particularly interested in continuing it (15). This loss of funding had the effect of delaying the
completion of the great abbey church for almost a century.
The Norman Conquest and the Great Fire of 1184 were major events in the life of Glastonbury Abbey, affording wonderful
opportunities for the creation of monastic legends. The steps that this process normally follows are described, below: (16)
a period of great crisis or a cataclysmic event, requiring restructuring or rehabilitation of the monastery
working to reflect glory on the monastery which, as a result of the event, is perceived to have been lost
promoting pilgrimages to the monastery, thereby generating positive attention and bringing in much needed revenues
using of any available material to supplement pious belief (in the most extreme cases, this phase involves embroidering actual
history or events for the purpose of making it easier to believe in something that would, otherwise, be too farfetched to even
consider)
Perhaps consistent with the pattern suggested above, in 1191 a stunning discovery was made by the monks of Glastonbury which
would forever change the course their abbey's history would take.
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Glastonbury Abbey
The Legends of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea
Part 4
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ccording to the account by the historian, Gerald of Wales, sometime before Henry II's death in 1189, the king was
told by a "British soothsayer" (perhaps an early foreshadowing of Melkin's prophecy) that the burial place of King
Arthur was to be found deep down, between two pyramids in the cemetery of Glastonbury Abbey. Presumably,
Henry passed this information on to the abbey authorities. Gerald tells us:
In our own lifetime, when Henry II was reigning in England (Henry died on 6 July 1189), strenuous efforts
were made in Glastonbury Abbey to locate what must have once been the splendid tomb of Arthur. It was the
King himself who put them on to this, and Abbot Henry (Henry de Sully, appointed abbot on 14 September
1189), who was later elected Bishop of Worcester, gave them every encouragement. (17)
Not a chance find, then, the discovery of Arthur's grave was apparently the result of a concerted search effort (some accounts say
the find was accidental). At the designated spot in the churchyard, the monks began digging and found a stone slab seven feet
under the ground. On the underside of that slab was a hollowed-out section where a "leaden" cross of very unusual shape had
been attached. Gerald tells us that the cross was inscribed as follows:
Here in the isle of Avalon lies buried the renowned King Arthur, with Guinevere, his second wife (18)
There are several other variant inscriptions that have been reported over the years by different writers, with three elements
common to all reports (with the exception of one glaringly anomalous account of uncertain provenance). The common elements
are: "famous or renowned," "King Arthur" and "Isle of Avalon." (19) Later, we will attempt to show the common origin for these
reports, but, for now we return to Gerald's story.
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Encouraged by their find, the monks continued digging down to the sixteen-foot level where they found a hollowed-out log
containing two bodies, believed to be those of Arthur and Guinevere. The bones of "Arthur" were said to be extremely large in
size and the skull they found had, among many wounds, a large "gash," suggesting death by a blow to the head. Gerald's account
goes on to tell us of the finding of a tress of "Guinevere's" fine, golden hair which dissolved to dust at the touch of a monk who,
we are told, had become enraptured at the sight.
Now, let's consider for a moment the reliability of the detailed report Gerald has given us. As medieval historical writings go,
those of Gerald of Wales are considered to be reasonably trustworthy. The precise date of Gerald's birth is not known, but it
probably occurred sometime in the mid-1140's in the castle of Manorbier, Pembrokeshire in South Wales. His father was a
Norman knight and his mother was half Norman, half Welsh (she was the granddaughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, Prince of South
Wales), making Gerald's blood three-fourths Norman and one-fourth Welsh royalty. By the late twelfth century, he had become a
well-known churchman, and was a gifted, ambitious man, thoroughly convinced of his own ability and importance. His life's goal
was to be appointed to the bishopric of St. David's in Wales, a post formerly held by his uncle, David FitzGerald. He never
attained his goal, having to satisfy himself with the lesser office of Archdeacon of Brecon, about which he said:
. . .it affords me no great promise of wealth and certainly no expectation of ever playing my part in the tragic
pomps and ceremonies of this world. (20)
With the discovery of "Arthur's grave" Gerald had, perhaps, found a way to play his part in those "tragic pomps and ceremonies."
Before we see how that part played itself out, we should look at some aspects of Gerald's earlier career that may help to
illuminate later events.
Gerald believed that St. David's had once been the seat of an archbishop. It was his desire, first, to get himself appointed as its
bishop, and then to extricate St. David's from its position of subservience to Canterbury. At that point, he believed he could
petition the pope in Rome for an elevation of his position to that of Archbishop of St. David's.
Gerald understood, perfectly well, that the key to the realization of his goal was having the support of the king, whose
prerogative it was to appoint bishops. Perhaps the king knew of Gerald's designs and perhaps the memories of his misadventure
with another powerful churchman (Thomas Becket), just six years before, were still too fresh in his mind. In any case, Henry II
denied Gerald a chance at the position when he appointed Peter de Leia to the vacant position in May of 1176. Gerald, however,
not knowing at the time that this was as close as he would ever get to realizing his dream, maintained his intense interest in St.
David's and in regaining his king's favour.
In 1184, Gerald was summoned to Henry, who was encamped in the Welsh marches, and who named him Court Chaplain. He
was to act as a liaison-officer between Henry, Rhys ap Gruffydd (a blood relation on his mother's side) and other local Welsh
princes. This tour of duty, more than a year of wandering with Henry's peripatetic court, was a valuable experience through
which he would gain much insight into the intricacies of Welsh-English politics. While it is pure speculation on our part, it may
not be too far-fetched to believe that Gerald's contact with the local rulers allowed him to learn, first hand, what was in the minds
of the Welsh. It is also not hard to imagine that Gerald, in his travels, heard tales of Arthur and reported what he had heard to
Henry. Perhaps, it was through Gerald that Henry first learned of the Welsh hope for Arthur's return.
In 1187, Henry II decided to "take the Cross" and to join the Third Crusade. A year later, Gerald, along with Archbishop Baldwin
of Canterbury, did his part for the war effort by undertaking a preaching tour through Wales for the purpose of enlisting support
for Henry's campaign. Gerald even accompanied Henry and his crusaders as far as Chinon, France, but was sent home by the new
king, Richard I, where he could be of more "political" use after Henry's death in July of 1189 (21).
While we don't know his mission, the stabilizing of the Welsh situation would be an enterprise worthy of the considerable talents
of this man, and we will see if any such political agenda can be discerned in Gerald's account of the events at Glastonbury Abbey.
Gerald tells his story in two separate works. The first is "Liber de Principis instructione," which may have been written as early
as 1192-3, but was surely the earliest account of the discovery and the prototype for all subsequent accounts. The second is
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"Speculum Ecclesiae," written c.1216. The accounts are quite similar in the essential details, but the later version is a bit less
objective and more interpretive of the event than is the earlier. Gerald's story is written as if it were an eye-witness account and
was probably related to him when he visited Glastonbury Abbey in late 1191 or early 1192.
The timing of the discovery of Arthur's grave is interesting in several respects and proper consideration may help us to appreciate
what the event was really all about. The Norman conquest was fully realized by the end of the twelfth century in all of England
and the only significant resistance came from Wales. One of the great hopes of the peoples of the Celtic fringe areas (Wales,
Cornwall, Strathclyde, Brittany) was that their greatest hero, King Arthur, would one day return and lead them to victory over
their enemies.
The Welsh had never submitted to the Saxons and had no intention of doing so with the Normans. It was the Welsh who had
created and kept alive the legends of King Arthur and, fuelled by Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of Arthur's last days in the
"History of the Kings of Britain," their hopes for his return had never been higher. Geoffrey, who completed his fanciful history
of the struggles of the Celtic peoples in 1136, left this door open by never stating that Arthur had actually died.
Perhaps the Welsh people may have thought that Arthur's wounds had actually been "attended to" and healed in the Isle of
Avalon, and that he was merely waiting for a propitious moment to burst gloriously back onto history's stage to purge their island
of this latest round of invaders. A dream like that, if thoroughly ingrained over many years, into an aggressive people's national
psyche, could have serious ramifications for anyone hoping to subdue them. From the Normans' point of view, it would be well if
they could eliminate that idea from the Welsh mind.
In Europe, the twelfth century saw a renaissance in the creative arts; ranking high among the great works of the age was
Geoffrey's "History." It provided a foundation for writers all over the continent to build on, and build they did, constructing the
edifice of the life of King Arthur, the greatest legend of all time. In fact, Geoffrey's work became so well accepted that it
remained the standard reference on Britain's history for over six hundred years.
It is likely that Geoffrey wrote the "History" with the idea of finding increased favour with his Norman bosses and, to be sure, it
contained certain aspects from which the new rulers of the land derived great benefit. For example, Geoffrey's tale gave the
Norman kings a pedigree far better than their real one (the Normans were descendents of the rapacious norsemen who had
conquered that portion of northern Gaul in the ninth century). They could point to the "History" and claim that their lands were
originally Arthur's own lands, and, by extension, that they were his legitimate heirs. It also gave them a national legend that
rivalled the legends of the great Charlemagne and, in the process, raised the perception of England to a level equal with that of
France.
Somewhat of a nuisance, though, was the fact that this same "History" which, in certain respects was so valuable to the Normans,
by not stating outright that Arthur had died, technically allowed for his continued existence, thus giving cause for hope to the
Welsh, the only remaining resistance to complete Norman control of the island. The events at Glastonbury in 1190 would provide
the corrective for whatever little "deficiencies" the Normans might have found in Geoffrey's "History."
Gerald of Wales' part in the affair would turn out to be a pivotal one, but whether he played his part by accident or by design, we
cannot be sure. In his writings, whenever Gerald had reason to mention Geoffrey of Monmouth, he did so in uncomplimentary
terms. Although we can't be sure of the reason for the ill feeling, the fact remains that when he devised his account of the
exhumation of Arthur's body, Gerald relied as heavily on Geoffrey as everyone else did and borrowed some elements directly
from the "History," as we shall see.
Geoffrey's account of Arthur's final battle at Camlann reads:
Arthur himself, our renowned king, was mortally wounded and carried off to the Isle of Avalon, so that his
wounds might be attended to. (22)
This passage from the "History of the Kings of Britain" was the direct inspiration for the burial cross inscription reported by
Gerald and, indirectly, for the varying burial cross inscriptions reported by the medieval chroniclers over the years. In creating
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his thoroughly imaginative "History," Geoffrey went against the grain of early British source material by referring to Arthur as a
King. When Arthur is mentioned in the early poems and chronicles, he is always a warrior, often a leader of other warriors, but
never a king. He is referred to as "Emperor" in the Welsh story, the "Dream of Rhonabwy," but by the way the word is used in
the story, we are led to believe that it must have another meaning, and that it is not intended to indicate royalty. Also, in some of
the lives of the saints written in the late eleventh century, Arthur is referred to as a king, but rules a far more limited domain than
the one described in Geoffrey. All this indicates a lack of any firm tradition about the figure of Arthur until Geoffrey nailed it
down in the "History." In Gerald's account, he uses the title, "King Arthur" and the modifying word, "renowned." These are
Gerald's words, but are direct borrowings from Geoffrey.
Another "first" for Geoffrey's "History" was his use of the term "Isle of Avalon," which seemed to be some sort of Celtic
"otherworld," a haven of peace and healing, not connected with any known geographical locality. While we take it for granted
that Glastonbury and Avalon are the same place, it was Gerald of Wales who made the connection for the first time.
Until the middle of the twelfth century, Arthur had been a character of legend, known only in obscure bardic tales and Welsh
battle poems, probably dating from the sixth or seventh centuries. By the late eleventh century, his name had begun to appear in
certain saints "lives," that peculiar genre of creative writing of professional hagiographers, that unabashedly combined particles
of truth with great quantities of fable for the purpose of "amplifying" the virtues of a particular holy man or his religious house. It
is interesting to note that several of the saints whose lives Arthur was said to have had some part in (Gildas, Iltyd, David), were in
some way connected with Glastonbury. But, even with all that, Arthur was not exactly a household name, especially among the
Norman aristocracy.
Everything changed, however, when the "History of the Kings of Britain" was published. Almost immediately, it began to inspire
a flow of new literary works, particularly in Brittany and France which would continue for many years. In the Celtic fringe areas,
Geoffrey's story of Arthur was received like water on dry ground and inspired a new hope for an invincible "savior" who would
return to lead his people against their enemies.
In King Arthur, Geoffrey had given the Normans a national hero whose reflected glory they could bask in; but they would much
rather have their hero dead and in his grave, where he could do them no harm. But, Geoffrey's "History" hinted that Arthur might
never have died and that thought troubled them. Less than sixty years later, Gerald of Wales was clever enough to turn the words
that Geoffrey used to create the great hero, Arthur, into the words that not only quashed the hope of his return, but also composed
the epitaph for his grave.
We get confirmation of this, in no uncertain terms, from Gerald, himself, who said in his exhumation account:
Many tales are told and many legends have been invented about King Arthur and his mysterious ending. In
their stupidity, the British people maintain that he is still alive. Now that the truth is known, I have taken the
trouble to add a few more details in this present chapter. The fairy-tales have been snuffed out, and the true
and indubitable facts are made known, so that what really happened must be made crystal clear to all and
separated from the myths which have accumulated on the subject. (23)
The Celtic people were thus free to hope for whatever they liked, but the discovery of "Arthur's" grave was the final nail in the
coffin of their resistance to the Norman regime. On one level, the discovery can be seen as an elaborate hoax, an orchestrated
event that Gerald of Wales played a part in and one that he may even have helped plan. But the Welsh hope would be no less
dead if Arthur's grave had been discovered in Cornwall, Gloucestershire or Oxfordshire. Why was Glastonbury chosen as the
place for the discovery of Arthur's grave and what did the Abbey have to gain from getting involved with the King Arthur
legends?
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SAXON CHURCHES
Many More Survive than First Imagined
Until some hundred and fifty years ago, it was widely believed that there were no
remains of Anglo-Saxon architecture to be seen in Britain. Despite there being next to
no surviving parts of secular buildings, Saxon features were slowly recognised in
standing ancient churches and today there seem to be few church guides which do not
claim some form of Saxon origin.
Though there are numerous churches with the odd Saxon feature, there are only
perhaps around fifty churches of major Saxon architectural importance remaining in
Britain today. It appears that the Norman invaders attempted a systematic eradication
of anything displaying a high degree of 'Englishness' and Saxon churches became a
prime target for rebuilding. No major high ranking Saxon churches survive today, nor
buildings from any of the great Saxon innovation centres like Winchester or Hexham.
For details of these we must look to the archaeologists. Instead, the buildings which
still stand are mostly small and ill-preserved and set in so called 'architecturally
unfashionable' areas.
Almost 85% of the Saxon architecture which can be seen today dates from the period
after 950, when many churches, devastated by Viking raids, were rebuilt in more
peaceful times. There was also an increase in the types of churches being built around
this time, hence an increase in numbers. Previously, priests were sent out into the
countryside from large Minster churches; and mostly ministered to the people at
preaching crosses in the open air. The 10th century saw the invention of what is now
the parish church and Saxon ecclesiastical buildings began to spring up all over the
place for the convenience of their local lords.
Happily, many gems still survive: churches which have endured later centuries almost
completely untouched, remains of early minster or monastic churches and even a single
church with wooden Saxon walls! From buildings like these, architectural historians
have built up a huge amount of data on styles and features which are undoubtedly
Saxon, such as pilaster strips and long-and-short quoins. Perhaps the best known are
certain types of window. Though evolving styles can be detected in these, for the most
part, the developmental sequences of Saxon church architecture still remain highly
controversial; and each building, whether still standing or buried beneath the ground,
has its contribution to make to our understanding of this important period of British
History.
The Church of St. Laurence Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire
C H U R C H O F S T. L A U R E N C E
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This page includes a basic outline about the Anglo-Saxon Chapel at Bradford-on-Avon. If you would like to go into
more depth, please click on the related link as they include a much more detailed analysis of the structure and the
complications with assigning a date to the building.
There is much debate about the date of construction of the Chapel of St. Laurence at Bradford-on-Avon. The
estimates range from the early eighth century to the mid eleventh century, depending upon the dating technique
used. Based on the written evidence, the building should be dated to the early eighth century but stylistically, it
reflects a date in the late tenth or more likely, the early eleventh century.
Some have suggested that it was the church built in AD 705 by St. Aldhelm as recorded by William of Malmesbury;
however, the stylistic features suggest that it was built at a later date. Others have tried to reconcile these two
theories by explaining that the church was rebuilt on the foundations of Aldhelm's original church in the tenth or
eleventh century, thus incorporating both the written evidence and the stylistic evidence.
The Saxon church was discovered by chance. After the ecclesiastical uses of the building ceased, it was converted
for secular use. The nave had been used as a school since 1715 and the chancel was owned by somebody different
and was used as a private cottage. Because of the Saxon tradition of building tall churches, it was possible to divide
the building horizontally and thus add an upper storey for living space. The chancel was actually divided into 3
stories.
The Saxon fabric of the building was recognized in 1856 by Canon Jones, Vicar of Bradford. During some repairs
on the building, the Bradford Angels were discovered. This discovery led Canon Jones to believe that the building
was an ancient church. He began research and discovered a passage in William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontificum
(dated circa 1125) which stated that "to this day at that place there exists a little church which Aldhelm is said to
have built to the name of the most blessed Laurence".
In 1871 the church was purchased and recognized as an "ancient monument" as Jones believed it to be the church
about which William of Malmesbury wrote. Thus, it was rededicated to St. Laurence, reconsecrated, and opened to
the public. It remains one of the gems of Anglo-Saxon architecture and is well worth the visit.
The Church of St. Laurence:
C H U R C H O F S T. L A U R E N C E
The House that Aldhelm built?
164
Dating Technique
Currently accepted art-historical methods used for dating pre-Norman churches are the use of primary and
secondary dating techniques.
Primary dating is based on historical and/or archaeological evidence that relates specifically to the church in
question.
Historical evidence is considered most valuable if it is contemporary or close to contemporary. It must also contain
an adequate enough description of the structure to ensure that the building in the document and the building being
examined are the same. There are obvious limits to this type of evidence.
Archaeologycan help to provide information in cases where the documentary evidence is not in itself sufficient
proof to establish a link between the documentary source and the site in question. Archaeology can often provide a
date between two defined limits. The archaeological method is often used on ruined churches which do not provide
information that is useful for secondary dating such as positions of altars or the types of windows.
Secondary evidence tends not to be as strong as primary evidence because Secondary evidence relies on stylistic
comparisons.
The Chapel of St. Laurence is a hybrid of distinct earlier styles. The Augustinian style which was generally twice
as long as it was broad; with an apsed sanctuary and often porticus. The Northumbrian style was three times as
long as it was broad, square sanctuary and no porticus. St. Laurence is a combination of both styles, which was
becoming increasingly more common. The length-breadth ratio is Kentish and it has a north and south porticus but
its height and square east end reflect the Northumbrian style. The church at Bradford, like other Saxon examples
such as Escomb in Durham, share the characteristic of having a relatively high height in relation to its ground
dimensions.
Now that primary and secondary techniques have been established, let us turn to the primary dating technique and
apply it to the chapel at Bradford-on-Avon. First, it should be noted that there has been no archaeological evidence
produced that relates to the dating of the chapel. Future archaeological investigation in Bradford-on-Avon is also
unlikely. The town is historically and architecturally important, so it is not likely that buildings will be removed to
allow for the opportunity of archaeological excavation. This rules out at least one aspect of primary dating. Now let
us turn to the second. The first time any reference to the chapel appears is in William of Malmesbury's Gesta
Pontificum in 1125.
Written Evidence
William of malmesbury recorded that in 705 St. Aldehlm founded monasteries at Bradford-on-Avon, Malmesbury
and Frome. The next known reference to Bradford-on-Avon does not appear until 955 when King Aedred
bequeathed three towns to Nunnaminster (St. Mary's monastery, Winchester) of which Bradford was one. Soon
after, another royal charter was granted; in 1001 the Bradford-on-Avon monastery was granted to Shaftesbury
Abbey by Aethelred II. It was supposed to provide a safe refuge for the nuns and their relics in case of a Danish
attack. In 1086, the Domesday Book, like all other written evidence up to this point, completely fails to specifically
mention the chapel but it tells us that the town of Bradford-on-Avon was still held by the Abbey of Shaftesbury.
An examination of the written material will uncover several flaws with associating this chapel with that of Aldhelm.
William of Malmesbury is generally considered to be an excellent source of historical information. He may be a
particularly good source for information about Aldhelm because he likely had access to one or two of Aldhelm's
own books that remained in the library of Malmesbury Abbey, which is where William studied. Although William is
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considered a reliable source, according to the "first principles" established by H.M. Taylor, a written source must be
contemporary or near contemporary, clearly be discussing the structure in question and give enough architectural
detail to make a confident claim that the building in question and the building in the document are the same. At
Bradford-on-Avon, no such claim is possible. No architectural description is given except the vague notion that it
was a "little church." The Gesta Pontificum does not make a clear association between Aldhelm's church and his
monastery at Bradford-on-Avon. The location of Aldhelm's monastery is not clear -- north side or the south side of
the river?
In Gesta Pontificum, written in the 1120s, William of Malmesbury said that "to this day there exists at that place
[Bradford-on-Avon] a little church which Aldhelm is said to have built to the name of the most blessed Laurence."
Aldhelm was the Bishop of Sherborne from 705 to 709 and Abbot of Malmesbury from 685 to 709 so if the present
chapel was built by Aldhelm it would date from the late seventh or early eighth century. Critics of the early date
point to another of William's observations from the Gesta Pontificum that "the monasteries at Frome and Bradford
have completely disappeared." The monastery may have been destroyed by Cnut's raid up the River Frome in 1015.
Based on the apparent importance of the chapel, it is likely the Danes would have destroyed it if it had been known
to have had some important religious function.
An alternative date and reason for construction has been suggested based on written evidence. In 984 and again in
1001 Shaftesbury Abbey was granted land in Bradford-on-Avon by King Aethelred II. The chapel may have been
built as a reliquary to house the bones of Edward the Martyr whose remains were translated from Wareham to
Shaftesbury Abbey in February 979. This suggestion is plausible for two reasons: the chapel was originally built
without windows and it fits the stylistic evidence better than the eighth century date. In 984 a grant was made to
Shaftesbury Abbey in the name of Aethelred II in order to provide a more secure place of Edward "the Martyr"'s
remains. In 1001 Aethelred II granted the cenobium of Bradford-on-Avon, with land in the vicinity to Shaftesbury
Abbey. The property was meant to give the nuns and their relics a place of refuge in case of Viking attacks. There is
another theory that suggests that the chapel was originally used as a reliquary. It has been suggested that Aldhelm's
body was translated to Bradford-on-Avon in the 10th century, the chapel was built to house it.
Although there is circumstantial documentary and stylistic evidence to believe that the chapel was built as a
reliquary for Edward the Martyr, it is unlikely. The Chapel of St. Laurence is on the north side of the River Avon; an
area that is relatively indefensible. If it were built as a reliquary to house the relics of Edward the Martyr or St.
Aldhelm it seems more logical to build the reliquary on the safest, most defensible place, not in an area that is
relatively indefensible. The most logical area to build a reliquary would have been just across the river from its
present location, on the south spur. There is also a problem with assigning a date of construction simply based on a
land grant. Although the nuns were given the property in 1001, this does not necessarily date the construction.
Political unrest and Viking raids on the area could have caused a delay in construction. A more suitable time to
construct the building to house the relics of Edward the Martyr would dictate the time construction.
Based on the criteria for primary dating, the chapel at Bradford-on-Avon can not be reliably dated in this way. The
earliest references were recorded over four hundred years after the chapel was said to have been built and there is no
detail provided to allow for a reliable comparison between the structure in the document and the structure in
question. It is now necessary to look at stylistic considerations to help to asses a date of construction.
Stylistic Evidence
The chapel of St. Laurence is a distinguished building. Although it is small, it was built with a
high standard of quality and skill which suggests its importance. The building is of a fairly
simple design: small nave and an eastern chancel, a north porticus and traces of a south
porticus. The external door in the north porch is offset to the west, perhaps in order to
accommodate an altar or font in the east. It appears that the windows were added during the
later Saxon period. Evidence for this appears on the west wall of the north porticus: a window
jamb cuts into the line of a pilaster strip.
The decoration appears to be simple, yet, it has been arranged
geometrically. The ornamentation was influenced by Celtic and HibernoSaxon patterns. Blind arcading and a decorative scheme of pilaster strips
and reeded decoration adorn the outside. The pilaster strips run from a
thin plinth at each corner and in the centre of each face up to a stringcourse which forms a base for a row of blank arcading above. It has been
suggested that the windows were incorporated into the design of the blind
arcading but on the west wall of the north porticus a window jamb cuts
into the line of a pilaster strip. The chancel is very small and opens into
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the nave through an
arch doorway. Simple
square imposts are
found at either side of the arch. The look of the chancel arch
is carried over to the
north porticus doorway. The reed scheme continues into the interior of the building and can be seen in the moulding
of the chancel arch. There are traces of pilaster strips with reeded decoration on the north porticus and on the gable
of the nave in the east. The continuity of design shows that the building was planned carefully in a single scheme. It
also shows the relative completeness of the Saxon period decor in the building.
By looking at other stylistic features, such as sculpture, it is also possible to help shed some light on to the date of
the decoration of the building. Two angels were discovered in 1856 during some renovations to the building in
Bradford-on-Avon. It was the discovery of these angels that prompted Canon Jones make a closer inspection of the
fabric of the building. The two angels are situated on either side of the chancel arch. They have been described as
"attendants to a vanished rood".
The Bradford angels were sculpted in a return to the linear silhouette style that was
based on drawings on the Cuthbert stole and the manuscripts that were made in the
Winchester style. The style is graceful, airy and light. It is difficult to date preNorman sculpture in the south of England because there are few examples and of a
relatively poor quality but the angels have parallels with manuscript art. The
Bradford angels are "true Winchester figures" and probably date to about 950.
Similar angels can be seen in the Old English Hexateuch (British Library, Cott.
Claud. B. iv, f. 2). Comparisons have also been made to the title page of King Edgar's
charter for the New Minster in Winchester (ca. 966). The sculpture does not provide
conclusive evidence for any date in particular. Although it is generally agreed that the
angels date from the late tenth century, proponents of the early date could argue that
the sculpture was added at a later date yet conversely proponents of a later date could
argue that the sculpture came from another site.
Indirect documentary evidence has suggested a possibility that the chapel was built shortly after the land grant to
Shaftesbury Abbey in 1001; however, secondary evidence shows that this date this is "uncomfortably early" because
of the rolls on the arches and the pilasters. The well cut ashlar has no parallel until churches of the eleventh century.
Diddlebury, Dymock and Titchborne are good comparative examples. Earlier churches such as Monkwearmouth,
Jarrow and Escomb are constructed from a high quality of masonry, but do not compare with the squared ashlar at
Bradford. The blind arcading that was used at Bradford-on-Avon is similar to that of the choir at the late eleventh
century Milborne Port, which is also made with well cut ashlar. There is earlier blind arcading such as that of
Ravenna in the fifth century, Poitiers in the seventh century and Gernrode in the tenth century, it seems that the most
contemporary blind arcading would be at Milborne Port. The decoration of both churches may have been designed
by the same person as Domesday Book reveals that the Shaftesbury Nuns held property at Milborne Port.
The decoration of the church is the main problem with assigning a date prior to mid-eleventh century. A logical
alternative can be offered in terms of supporting an early eleventh century date of construction. It is possible that the
building was built after the grant of cenobium in 1001 but due to a variety of reasons ranging from funding to
political or military unrest the decoration was delayed. As the carving was done in situ it is possible that it is not
necessarily contemporary with the date of the actual construction of the structure. It may have been carved a
generation or two after the building was built and would have likely been carved in a style that was popular at the
time, thus making it appear as if it was built at a later date.
After an examination of both the primary and the secondary evidence, it is clear that the date of the chapel of St.
Laurence at Bradford-on-Avon is still debatable. Canon Jones tried to use documentary support for his assertion that
this was the church that Aldhelm had built. According to Taylor's theory, Jones acted correctly; however, the Gesta
Pontificum was not explicit enough to make any definite claims. Stylistically, there is much to consider. Harold
Taylor recognized this and devoted his third volume of Anglo-Saxon Architecture to the re-definition of the
typology used to date Anglo-Saxon structures.
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СРСП-43
The Church of All Saints
THE CHURCH
OF ALL SAINTS
Brixworth Northamptonshire
All Saints' Church, Brixworth, Northamptonshire is
"perhaps the most imposing architectural monument
of the 7th century yet surviving north of the Alps"
-- Sir Alfred Clapham
The date of the construction of All Saints' Church, Brixworth is unclear; however, it is without question one of the
most outstanding churches of its period in England. It has been in continuous use as a centre of Christian worship
from its building to the present day. It is also the largest structure to survive from those early years although it is
thought that a Viking attack destroyed the side aisles in AD 870.
Although the date of construction is debatable, I have attempted to show both sides. This initial page has been
adapted from the guide produced by Revd. Nicholas Chubb and is available for sale at the church. For the other side
of the debate, see the detailed essay for more information.
Why was this church built?
Brixworth was thought of as a suitable centre from which to spread the Gospel to the non-Christian natives of
Mercia, the middle kingdom of early England. Christianity spread through the country from two directions: north
and south. It was first established in the north in Celtic parts where the monks settled many communities. Each
community was a centre for new work and in time the monks who lived at Lindisfarne formed a centre at
Medeshamstede (modern Peterborough). The monks from Medeshamstede formed their own new centres.
According to an early twelfth century passage in the Peterborough Chronicle following the appointment of Sexwulf
as Bishop of Mercia in AD 675 "it came to pass that from that very monastery were founded many others with
monks and abbots from the same congregation, as at ... Brixworth, Bredon, Bermondsey, Repton, Woking and at
many other places".
Who inspired the building of a church here?
One theory supposes that it was Wilfrid, Bishop of Hexham. His work was chiefly in the North and the Midlands,
and he was a regular visitor to France and Italy. In his enthusiasm for converting his fellow countrymen to the new
faith he spared no effort. It is believed that he brought crafts-people back with him on his trips to the continent to
help build the churches which he was founding. There is no doubt that Brixworth shows both Saxon and Italian or
Syrian influence in a marked degree and this in itself is a puzzle that needs explanation.
All of these arguments for an early date are interesting, but it must be borne in mind that the church we have today
may not be that mentioned in the Peterborough Chronicle but one built in the 8th or early 9th century. It could have
been built about 750 by King Ethelbald of Mercia in honour of his friend Boniface. This would fit in very well with
the existence today of the relic thought to be from the larynx of St. Boniface. In which case the chamber in the tower
could have been a chapel for the King himself. A later date than 680 would also help in the argument surrounding
the building of a first apse and crypt-chapel underneath. Although Brixworth has similarities with many
contemporary buildings, it does not follow any one type slavishly, and this may well be because of its geographical
position where it was open to many influences from all sides. For more details on the debate about the date see the
detailed essay link below.
168
Why has the church survived so long?
Probably due to a number of fortunate coincidences. At first it was an important monastic centre an then quite
quickly the church became the parish church of a not very important village and perhaps it was just ignored.
Whatever happened we are very lucky that we have a fine example of early Anglo-Saxon architecture at Brixworth
modified comparatively little by succeeding generations.
The following was furnished by Michael Lewis, a Brixworth resident and a member of the All Saints' Council and
choir. He has kindly responded to my questions about the church and surrounding area.
The New Bell
The church had a new bell hung in 1993. It was installed to commemorate the end of a restoration compaign
spearheaded by the Friends of All Saints' Brixworth to reinforce the spire and tower. For many years the bells were
silent on account of the weak structure of the tower. Recent restoration has started on the Lady Chapel to replace the
decayed leading in the windows. In a church of All Saints' age, restoration projects are more or less continuous.
The Brixworth Relic
The 'Brixworth Relic' has quite an involved history. The reliquary was found beneath the middle window of the
Lady Chapel when some restoration work was being undertaken in 1821. When it was opened a wooden box was
discovered containing a fragment of bone wrapped in cloth. The wooden box had an inscription believed to be the
initials of Thomas Bassenden, the last chantry priest, and the date when he had the relic bricked up in the wall for
posterity - circa 1500. In some early parish documentation there are several references to guilds of St Boniface and
in wills and accounts referring to festivities around St Boniface's Day (5th June). This connection with an early
Christian who was born in Crediton, Devon, travelled to Europe as a missionary, later became the Bishop of Mainz,
is a bit suspicious. Nevertheless, it is believed that St Boniface was martyred in his own cathedral and that someone
acquired his larynx bone and brought it to Brixworth. It was considered important in those early times to have some
connection with a known holy person. The reliquary was displayed for many years above the pulpit, but increased
vandalism and theft of the building in recent years has forced its removal to a safer place, the location of which I
cannot disclose! The feast of St Boniface is commemorated today with the annual church fete, always on the first
weekend in June.
The Roman Villa
Although magnificent, Brixworth Church is not the oldest archaeological site in Brixworth.
There have been extensive excavations at the site of a Roman villa north of the Church.
Much of the fabric of the church comprises re-worked Roman tiles and the Eagle in the
doorway is carved on a stone used in the original Roman building. It is hoped that one day
the Eagle may be removed to discover what lies on its reverse side.
Architectural & Historical Discussion
169
The Church of All Saints
MONUMENTS & MUNIMENTS
The Date of the Church of All Saints, Brixworth, Reconsidered
Northamptonshire is an area particularly rich in Anglo-Saxon churches and church remains. Although the
higher proportion of Anglo-Saxon remains may lend itself to the potential for architectural diversity, it has
been suggested that the masons of Northamptonshire were "architectural pioneer[s]". In spite of this
pioneering spirit, which may be based on the innovations at Brixworth, have
architectural historians let down their critical guard in accepting the date of
the building based on the writings of a monk who wrote almost 500 years
after the building was supposedly constructed? Has the Church of All Saints
at Brixworth become the subject of circular analysis? Because historians
have accepted the date of AD 675 as the foundation of the building, they
have looked at the features that are typically found in structures of a later
date and called the Brixworth builders pioneers. Were the builders of
Brixworth "architectural pioneers" or was the building actually built at a later
date? The archaeology and documents relating to the building will be examined as will other possible
stylistic sources. The examination will reveal a connection not only with the Kentish group which was
initially believed to be the closest stylistic source but also with the later Northumbrian group as well as
Carolingian influences.
The archaeological evidence is inconclusive. There were archaeological excavations held near the church
in the early 1980s. A large ditch was discovered that has been dated to the late seventh or early eighth
century. It has been suggested that this ditch was the boundary of the monastery. The ditch does not
necessarily indicate a monastery was present at that time, and provides no information about the present
structure. A late Saxon cemetery was also discovered adjacent to the ditch. The presence of the
cemetery, which has been dated to a later period than has the ditch, does not necessarily indicate that
there was a monastic foundation on the site at the time the ditch was made; however, a possible earlier
foundation can not be ruled out by this archaeological evidence either.
Like the archaeological sources, the written sources are also inconclusive. Although the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle supports the foundation of several daughter Abbeys of Medeshamstede (later known as
Peterborough), it does not specifically state Brixworth in its list of foundations. The building apparently
stood in ruins in the 10th century, possibly as the result of the Danish raid. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
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that would
Brixworth.
Chronicle
does mention a Danish raid
have likely torn through
An entry in the Anglo-Saxon
states the following:
In this year [869/70] the host went across Mercia into East Anglia, and took winter
quarters at Thetford; and the same winter St. Edmund the king fought against them, and
the Danes won the victory, and they slew the king and overran the entire kingdom, and
destroyed all the monasteries to which they came.
By the end of the tenth century, the building seems to have been made suitable for use. At the time the
Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, the monastic use of the building appears to have ceased.
Domesday Book reports that Brixworth was a manner with one priest, 14 villagers and 15 small holders.
The next mention of Brixworth is in the writings of a twelfth century monk, Hugo Candidus. Hugo
expanded on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's list of monastic establishments. He too wrote that the
monastery at Medeshamstede founded many daughter houses, but added Brixworth to the list. According
to Hugo, Brixworth was founded by Sexwulf and Cuthbald who were known to have been late seventh
century Abbots at Medeshamstede. Although Hugo was not a contemporary of Cuthbald or Sexwulf, he
may be right in assigning a late seventh century date to the founding of a monastery at Brixworth;
however, it does not necessarily date the present building. Hugo's testimony is a large factor in assigning
the date of construction at c. 675. Hugo has largely been accepted because his assertion that Brixworth
was founded as a minster is supported by its size.
It is generally accepted that the Church of All Saints at Brixworth was built as a minster but the
conventions of the structure itself do not clearly fall into any established tradition of construction. There
were established conventions and traditions on which builders could draw. These traditions were
accepted within the time frame and the geographic region. The established styles are mere guidelines
and do not necessarily exclude any other possible sources or the possibility for creativity on the part of
the building's designer, but as the Anglo-Saxon builders were unfamiliar with stone construction, it is
reasonable to assume that they would have built in styles familiar to them. There are four likely sources
that the Brixworth masons could have drawn on for a monastery or church built circa AD 675: the
Romano-British School, such as Silchester; the Anglo-Saxon School, such as Escomb; the Kentish
School, such as St. Augustine, Canterbury; or possibly the Northumbrian School, such as Jarrow.
The Romano-British style is represented in what is believed to be the earliest building constructed in
England for Christian services: the basilica at Silchester (Hampshire). It was of the basilican plan with an
apse at the west end and an eastern narthex. The Anglo- Saxons did not, however, adopt this plan for
their Christian buildings. The usual Anglo-Saxon church plan was generally quite plain. The plans of
Bradford-on-Avon (Wiltshire) and Escomb (Co. Durham) show a square ended chancel divided by a solid
wall with a narrow arch. Porches on the north and south were not uncommon. The Kentish school had
standard methods of design and construction. Its design was based on the Roman basilican form. The
basilican plan was probably reintroduced in England by Augustine in 597. It was Augustine who
summoned builders to England from Gaul to build "in the Roman manner." The last stylistic source in
England for Brixworth is the Northumbrian School. In 674 Benedict Biscop, an Anglian noble who had
been a monk in France, brought French stone masons to the north of England and began construction of
stone churches. The monasteries at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow are examples of the Northumbrian
School. Northern structures such as Hexham, Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, were similar to Gaulish
basilicas.
Brixworth does not fall neatly into any model. The building generally follows the basilican plan. The main
structure is built on a 3:1 ratio plus a west porch and an apsidal chancel. An upper room in the narthex
has a three-light window with a pair of late Saxon baluster shafts separating the lights (see image on the
right) which are similar to those at Monkwearmouth. The west end window at Brixworth has a modified
form of a Byzantine architectural technique which was not adopted in Italy until the end of the ninth
century and Germany in the tenth century. The nave has four bays and was flanked to the north and to
the south with structures which were originally believed to be side aisles, but more recent archaeological
evidence has revealed that the large side arches provided access into side chapels or porticus, similar to
those at Canterbury St. Augustine or the north side of Jarrow, rather than side aisles as understood in the
traditional basilican form. It was later in the Saxon period that the chapels were altered to form side
aisles. After the side aisles were destroyed, what was once the interior arcade, was bricked up and
served as the outer wall. This arcading is closely related to Jarrow of the Northumbrian group.
The triple chancel arcade is an important feature as it stylistically ties Brixworth to the early Kentish
School. It was also originally believed that a triple arcade opened up into the presbytery, but once again,
more recent scholarship has reinterpreted the evidence and has suggested an alternative. It was initially
asserted that the inclusion of a triple arcade chancel arch indicated a close relationship with the Kentish
171
group; however, the triple arcade chancel arch
theory has been set aside in favour of a five
"window" opening. Conclusive evidence is not
possible, however, due to later renovations. In
addition to the triple chancel arch, the apse also
indicated a close relationship with the Kentish group.
The apse
was not popular in England, although it was a
characteristic
of the Kentish group. The apse was originally semicircular, but
was later modified into a polygonal shape on the
outside. The crypt ambulatory dates from the original apse but is usually assigned a late eighth or early
ninth century because, with the exception of Brixworth, this style of ambulatory was not known until that
period.
Brixworth has a subterranean ambulatory of a non-existent crypt under the sanctuary. Crypts are rare in
Saxon churches and suggests an Italian or a Carolingian influence. The purpose of the ambulatory is not
clear. It may have been used to house relics and the walkway would have provided access for the
pilgrims. There is relic that is said to have come from the body of the eighth century Anglo-Saxon
missionary, Boniface. It has been suggested that the crypt was built to house this particular relic. An
alternative suggestion has been made recently, and that is that the crypt may have been designed for
burial use. There are niches that may have been deliberately constructed for the purpose of receiving
stone sarcophagi. There is no trace of the crypt under the apse itself. Perhaps the construction of the
crypt was interrupted by the Danish invasion of the area, which suggests a later date of construction as
the crypt ambulatory and the apse were contemporary.
Although the crypt is rare in Anglo-Saxon architecture, there are other examples to be found in England,
such as the ninth century Church of All Saints in Wing (Buckinghamshire). Brixworth and Wing share
some common features and may have been built about the same time. The basic basilican plan, 3:1
length:width ratio, apsidal chancel, non-radiating voussoirs, three course imposts and a crypt. Many of
these features were rare in Anglo-Saxon architecture, but are present in both churches. Wing has been
dated to the ninth century based mainly on its design and the inclusion of the apsidal crypt, a Carolingian
innovation. Brixworth shares many of these features, including the characteristic ninth century Carolingian
outer crypt, yet it has been assigned an earlier date. The main difference being a written source places
Brixworth in the seventh century and no such source exists for Wing.
In many cases, written sources provide valuable details that may not be gained from any other source;
however, in cases such as Brixworth, the other sources are largely ignored in the presence of written
evidence. Other buildings with similar features are assigned later dates in the absence of written records.
There are similarities between Brixworth and the Northumbrian group, which was established in 674.
Given the relative geographic positions, it is unlikely that the Northumbrian influence would have made its
way as far south as Brixworth by the time Hugo Candidus claims that Brixworth was built in the late
seventh century. There is nothing to suggest that Benedict Biscop stopped in Brixworth on his way to
Northumbria. There is also strong evidence of the Carolingian influence, particularly in the crypt. This
influence may have found its way into England through a direct link between the ninth century Carolingian
court and the kingdom of nearby Wessex. King Egbert of Wessex grew up in the court of Charlemagne
and returned to England in 802. It is possible that, due to Britain's insular nature, an architectural style
such as Brixworth could have been developed; however, logic suggests that if these features are found in
abundance elsewhere at a later date, that perhaps the date given is too early and that Brixworth adopted
Northumbrian and Carolingian features rather than the other way around.
Deerhurst A Village with Two Saxon Churches!
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Directions: Carry on past the Abbey and out of the Tewkesbury down the A38 south towards Gloucester. About three miles on, turn right on
the B4213 and follow signs to Deerhurst.
Deerhurst is a tiny little village, remarkable in that within it stand, not one, but two Saxon places of
worship. First you approach the parish church of St. Mary in the centre of the village, a large towered
building alongside a picturesque farmhouse. At first glance, it looks a typical medieval building with
several windows added in the Tudor period. The church was part of a priory complex. There was a
cloister to the south and the present farmhouse was part of the surrounding monastic buildings, probably
the monks' dormitory. It is still actually joined to the church. The tower appears quite plain from a
distance, but walk round to the main west door and examine it more closely. The church's ancient origins
soon become obvious. Herringbone masonry, crude animal head busts and a high doorway opening into
nowhere for relic display: Deerhurst is one of the finest remaining Saxon Churches in the country. If you
walk all around the church to the eastern end, there is further evidence of Saxon work with the remains of
a polygonal ninth century apse. It is adorned, on the south side, with a beautiful
angel carving: the last of a series of decorative panels that demonstrate the
quality of embellishments lavished on this important building.
Little is known of the history of the place. Architecturally, it appears to have
been established in the late seventh century, but there are no records of its
existence before 804. That year, Aethelric, son of Earl Aethelmund of Hwicce
(a Saxon sub-kingdom covering this area) granted the priory a very large area
of land and made known his desire to be buried there. It has been suggested
that the priory was always the main church of the Hwicce and that there Kings
were traditionally buried here. It was certainly the scene of important political
events like the 1016 signing of the treaty between Kings Edmund Ironside and
Canute which divided England in two.
It is the church itself which tells us most about the building's story. It started as
a rectangular building with a western porch in the late seventh century. A
circular apse and side chapels were added early the following century. In the
9th century the apse was rebuilt as a polygon and individual chapels extended
all the way down both sides. The 10th century saw the western porch extended
to form a tower and it is from here that you enter St. Mary's.
Inside, on the wall opposite, there is an early carving of the Virgin and Child with traces of its original
paintwork still intact. It may have come from the ruined apse. As you move forward towards the nave, turn
to examine the very fine wolf-head dripstone terminals either side of the doorway. They were very
sensibly moved here from the outside wall in 1860 to protect them from the ravages of the British
weather. There are further Saxon wolf-heads either side of the altar. In puritan
times, this was placed centrally in the church, hence the survival of the unique pew
arrangement at the eastern end of the building. The main features of the nave are
the exceptional examples of Early English arcading with delightfully carved corbels
and capitals, but turn again and look up at the western church wall for more Saxon
details. The highest feature is a possible dedication stone. Below this sits what is
said to be the "finest, most elaborate opening in any Saxon Church": certainly an
excellent example of Saxon pointed windows. Then there is a bizarre triangular
window next to a small Saxon doorway which opened onto a western gallery. The
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old Saxon building was largely based on two storeys. On the ground-floor is a good Saxon archway.
The north and south aisles house further treasures. The western window of the latter has what remains of
the church's impressive array of old glass. St. Catherine is easily identified with her famous wheel. She
dates from around 1300. Accompanying her is a mid 15th century depiction of St. Alphege, an 11th
century monk from the priory who rose to be Archbishop of Canterbury and was martyred by the Danes.
There are also arms of the De Clare Lords of Tewkesbury, kneeling members of the De Hautville family
and 'Suns-in-Splendour' indicating the parish's Yorkist sympathies during the Wars of the Roses. In the
north aisle is the superb ninth century font, rescued last century from a farmyard. It shows heavy Welsh
influence being decorated mainly with so-called Celtic Trumpet Spirals. The Strickland memorial window
nearby shows the family's turkey crest. An ancestor is said to have accompanied the Cabots to America
and introduced the bird to Britain on their return. Further east are the
handsome brasses of the Cassey family from Wightfield Manor. Sir
John was Chief Lord of the Exchequer in the late 14th century, but it is
the little dog at the feet of his wife which draws attention. It is obviously
the depiction of a specific family pet, for he is named as 'Terri': the only
example of a named animal on any memorial brass. The walls of the
church in this area were stripped in 1973 to show the Saxon
stonework. They give a fascinating insight into the building's original
form, showing two of the doorways to the numerous side chapels or
'portici' and holes for the wooden Saxon scaffolding!
Deerhurst The Tiny Chapel of Odda's Lost Palace
Directions: It is difficult to tear yourself away from such a remarkable building as St. Mary's in Deerhurst, but just down the road is yet
another. Follow the signs to Odda's Chapel.
Odda's Chapel is a tiny Saxon chapel now built into a medieval timber-framed farmhouse which obscures the
eastern chancel. The building is a simple two-cell structure with characteristic Saxon long and short quoins. It is
very plain inside, but retains its original chancel arch and a number of Saxon windows. Its importance was only
recognised in 1885, despite the fact that an important stone inscription was found nearby some two hundred years
before. A copy is on display:
"Earl Odda had this Royal Hall built and dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity for the soul of
his brother, Aelfric, which left the body in this place. Bishop Ealdred dedicated it the second of
the Ides of April in the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward, King of the English."
[12th April 1056]
Odda is a well known figure of the period. He was Earl of Hwicce and a captain of the Royal Fleet, not to mention, a
kinsman of King Edward the Confessor. The stone implies that he and his brother, Aelfric, built (or rebuilt) a large
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palace complex here which included the chapel. It would not have been unlike that excavated at Cheddar
(Somerset). Both men are known to have died at Deerhurst and to have been buried in Pershore Abbey
СРСП-44
Monasticism in Britain
Monastic communities, both of men and women, have played an important role in the history of
Britain. In a society which presented few options or opportunities, this way of life offered many
attractions. What the life lacked in glamor, it more than made up for in serenity and stability. The
monastic life offered social mobility for some, and a refuge for others. The monasteries provided
the opportunity for education, freedom from some of the economic uncertainties of the times,
and, often, a career path that could lead to a very high station in life.
Monastic communities trace their origin to the early centuries of the Christian era. Some early
Christians fled to the Egyptian deserts to live alone (monos) with God. These Desert Fathers
greatly influenced the development of monasticism, both Eastern and Western. At the heart of
the monastic impulse is the rejection of the world, and the recreation of paradise. The Desert
Fathers were, at first, solitaries (ermetical). Later hermits gathered into small communities and
shared some aspects of life together (cenobitical). This tension is often reflected in the history of
monasticism.
The founding of Western Monasticism is attributed to St. Benedict of Nursia (c.480)-c.547).
Benedict did not originate monasticism in the West, but he regularized it, altering something
here and adding a bit there to provide a more balanced and moderate style of monasticism. His
"Little Rule for Beginners" required a vow of stability which unites a monk for life to the
particular monastery in which his vows are made (an extremely important new development).
Benedict also stressed the cenobitic life under the authority of an Abbot and Rule. Those that
follow the Rule of St. Benedict are called Benedictines. Manual labor and prayer comprised the
focus of monastic life and is reflected in the Benedictine motto, "Ora et Labora." Manual labor
was later interpreted to include academic labor.
Benedict's Rule was brought to Britain in 597, by St. Augustine, who had been sent by Pope
Gregory the Great (both of whom were Benedictines) to preach to and convert the Saxons, who
had taken over control of the island, by this time. The Benedictine observance co-existed with
other observances of Celtic origin for some 50 years, but, in the end, prevailed at the Synod of
Whitby in AD 664, thanks to St. Wilfred of York, St. Benedict Biscop and others.
Over the next 900 or so years, the Benedictines and all other monastic orders, would go through
various vicissitudes which came to an abrupt end, around 1540, with the Dissolution of the
Monasteries under Henry VIII.
For descriptions of the major orders which flourished in Britain before Henry's reforming axe
fell, please click on the appropriate link in the frame to the right.
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The Legend of Waltham Abbey
Waltham Abbey is in the county of Essex, roughly 16 miles north of London. The nearest rail station is in the town
of Waltham Cross, accessible from Liverpool Street Station in London.
Bordering London to the northeast are six thousand acres of
public land covered by Epping Forest. It is a great place to
explore on foot or on horseback, and in spite of its attractions
for artists, naturalists, and picnickers one can easily find
solitude in its deep woodland glades. Rural villages and old
inns lie sheltered among the forest trees.
West of the forest the land descends to the valley of the River
Lea which is a flat area, messily industrialized and without obvious interest. Waltham is one of
its small towns. The automobile age has dealt harshly with it, but there are still medieval streets
near its battered, old abbey, which was once famous among pilgrims for the miracles performed
there.
The Holy Rood that was the instrument of those miracles vanished at the Reformation, but the
abbey is still much visited for its antiquarian features. After Durham and Norwich it has the
finest and most extensive range of Norman architecture in England. Its eastern end has been
destroyed, and so have the former monastic buildings to its north. In their place are gardens and a
tidy lawn from which bits of old masonry protrude.
The site of the former chancel, to the east of the abbey, is sacred ground to English traditionalists
who still resent the imposition of the "Norman yoke," for somewhere there (the exact site is no
longer known) Harold, the last king of Saxon England, was buried after his defeat and death at
the battle of Hastings.
The Finding of the Miraculous Cross
During the reign of King Canute (also Cnut), between 1017 and 1035, a remarkable discovery
was made in Somerset. A man dreamed that on a hilltop at Montacute, about 15 miles south of
Glastonbury, a treasure would be found. Excavations were made there, and a large flint cross
was dug up. The story is that it was placed on a cart drawn by twelve red and twelve white oxen,
the intention being to take the cross to Glastonbury Abbey, but the oxen refused to go in that
direction. Instead they made their own way across country until they came to Waltham, where
they stopped by the church. Waltham, therefore, became the shrine of the cross, known as the
Holy Rood. In 1060 Harold consecrated a large new church in its honor, and miraculous cures
and visions took place around it.
The Abbey Church of Waltham Holy Cross
Waltham became so rich from the pilgrims who flocked to the Holy Rood that about sixty years
after King Harold consecrated it, the church was rebuilt on a grand scale. It was over twice as
long as the present building, which is merely the original nave. Harold founded a college of
secular canons to serve in the church; by the end of the twelfth century it was occupied by
Augustinian canons, and Waltham had become an abbey.
Waltham was the last of the abbeys to be dissolved by Henry VIII. Most of it was pulled down
in 1540. Only the nave was left to serve as the parish church. The original tower to its east fell
down in 1552, and a new one, in checkered stone, was built at the west end, supporting the rest
of the building which was in danger of collapse.
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Inside the abbey one finds a splendid composition of Norman architecture, beautifully restored
and maintained. Above the bulky pillars, decorated with zigzags and spirals, is a gallery and
clerestory. Guidebooks are sold in the crypt below, and there is an exhibition of the abbey's
history and details of excavations which took place in 1986 (foundations of earlier churches were
uncovered beneath the abbey while central heating was being installed). The fine state of the
abbey interior is largely due to the Victorian architect and designer, William Burges, who was in
charge of restorations during the 1860-70's.
He rebuilt the east wall and added many fine furnishings, including the altar and reredos.
Carvings around the windows were of his design. His marble pulpit has since been replaced by
the old wooden one and is now exhibited in the Epping Forest District Museum in Sun Street.
Contributions were made by other leading Victorian artists. One of the first things one notices is
the painted ceiling, executed to Burges's design in 1860 by Edward Poynter, who was later
president of the Royal Academy. The paintings, done on canvas, show the four elements and the
twelve signs of the zodiac, together with the activities, such as plowing and weaving, appropriate
to each of the signs. A notice by the entrance states emphatically that these images have nothing
to do with occultism or any such non-Christian practice.
СРСП-45
Monasteries of
the Yorkshire Dales & Moors
Yorkshire is a wide, open county, so vast that it covers most of the North of England. Though its southern regions
are now heavily urbanized, the north retains the raw rural landscapes that once made monks swam here like bees to
the honey-pot. There is something magnetic about the high moors and sweeping dales which draws one close to
mother nature and, for a monk no doubt, to his God.
Monastic institutions first established themselves in the county, way back in the days of Saxon
Northumbria. The area was famous for its holy men and women and the monasteries that
gathered around them: St. Hilda in Whitby, St. Wilfred in Ripon, St. Chad in Lastingham.
However, Viking devastation quickly brought the Golden Age of Northumbrian Christianity to
an end and the ancient abbey churches lay in ruins for several centuries.
Following the Norman Conquest (1066), however, a new breed of monks began to arrive in the
North. A multitude of continental monastic orders moved in, all with different ideas about how
to best serve God. The Northern Mission got off to a late start, so the widespread Benedictine
monks were never a great force in Yorkshire. However, there was plenty of available land and
generous lords eager to show their piety by donating it to a monastic foundation. The
Augustinian 'black' canons were influential, but it was the strict Cistercians who really came
into their own in the county, making Rievaulx the centre of their order in England.
For almost 470 years, the monasteries dominated Yorkshire life. The monks were neighbours to everyone. Yet,
suddenly, they were gone: swept away by the greed of 'Bluff King Hal' in the 1530s. The Dissolution of the
Monasteries reduced most of the great Yorkshire Abbeys and Priories to mere stone quarries for the local
population. Yet, still, the ruins over half of the eighty-three monastic houses in the county remain. Some of the best
are in the Dales and the Moors. They stand proud and majestic in their dramatic locations. Let Britannia introduce
you.
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