Viking rule was recognised in the east and north of England . So East Anglia and part of Northumbria formed the Viking sector. It was called the Danelaw, the land where the law of the Danes ruled.

At the beginning of the 11 -th century Saxon resistance collapsed and Cnut (Canute), king of the Vikings managed to unite the Anglo-Saxons and Danes. He became the ruler of the whole of England, Viking Scotland, Denmark, and Scandinavia. He entrusted Saxons with the government of Saxons, paid off and dispersed his Danish Army. Only a person of Cnut’s stature could have ruled such a diverse empire, and it fell to pieces on his death in 1035.

The Medieval Period.

The successful Norman invasion of England brought Britain into the mainstream of western European culture. Unlike the Germanic invasions, the Norman invasion was small-scale. Though the Normans were descendants of Viking settlers in Northen France, they thought quite differently from the Scandinavians (and the English). The basis of their army was the knight, who fought on horseback, both rider and horse were covered in chain-mail while native soldiers fought on foot and were armed with axes and spears.

In 1066 Duke William of Normandy landed in England with his army, defeated Harold, the king of England, in the battle near Hastings, marched to London and was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. He was called William the Conqueror. William organised his kingdom according to the feudal system which had already begun to develop in England before his arrival. The word “feudalism” comes from the French ‘’feu” which the Normans used to refer to land held in return for duty or service to a lord. William was careful in the way he gave land to his nobles. Of all the farmland of England he gave half to the Norman nobles, a quarter to the Church, and kept a fifth himself.

Great nobles or barons were responsible directly to the king; lesser lords were directly responsible to a baron. The peasants were the English-speaking Saxons. The lords and the barons were the French-speaking Normans. The strong system of government which the Normans introduced meant that the Anglo-Norman kingdom was the most powerful political force in the British Isles. Not surprisingly therefore that, by the end of the 13-th century a large part of eastern Ireland was controlled by Anglo-Norman lords in the name of the English king and the whole of Wales was under his direct rule ( at which time the custom of naming the monarch’s eldest son the «Prince of Wales» began ). Scotland managed to remain independent in the medieval period, but had to fight occasional wars.

The cultural story of this period is different. 250 years after the Norman Conquest, it was a Germanic language ( Middle English ) and not the Norman ( French ) language which had become dominant in all classes of society in England. It is interesting to observe the tendencies in the language which are closely inter-related with the life of the society and reflect it. For example the existence of two words for the larger farm animals in modem English is a result of the class divisions established by the Norman conquest. There are the words for living animals ( e.g. cow, pig, sheep ), which have their origins in Anglo- Saxon, and the words for the meat from the animals ( e.g. beef, pork, mutton ), which have their origins in the French language that the Normans brought to England. Only the Normans normally ate meat; the poor Anglo-Saxon peasants did not!

Despite English rule, northern and ccntral Wales was never settled in great numbers by Saxons or Normans. As a result the ( Celtic ) Welsh language and culture remained strong. The Anglo-Norman lords of eastern Ireland remained loyal to the English king but, despite laws , mostly adopted the Gaelic language and customs.

The political independence of Scotland did not prevent a gradual switch to English in the lowland part of the country. It was strengthened by Saxon aristocrats fleeing the Norman conquest of England.

Seminar 4

British History- in Brief (Part II)

1. The origin of Parliament. Magna Carta.

2. The Late Middle Ages.

1. The Hundred Years’ War;

2. Black Death;

3. Peasants’ Revolt;

The origin of Parliament. Magna Carta.

Originally the word «Parliament», meaning a talk, was applied to the after- dinner gossip of the monks in their cloisters, which was condemned by the authorities as unedifying.

This term was first officially used in 1236 to describe the gathering of feudal barons and representatives of counties and towns which the king summoned if extraordinary taxation was required. By the 15^lh century parliament had acquired the right to make laws.

The idea that the king should seek the advice of a counsel of prominent men can be traced back to the period of Saxon rule.

The monarchy eventually experienced difficulties in controlling the growing machinery of government. The actions of King John led to opposition from feudal barons and leading figures in the Church. In 1215 the barons force

dthe King to agree to a series of concessions embodied in a charter which became known as Magna Carta.

The charter provided protection of the rights of feudal proprietors against the abuse of royal power. It was regarded as the key expression of the rights of the community against the Crown.

Medieval England (The late Middle ages)

The Hundred years’ war

The XIV century was disastrous for Britain as well as most of Europe, because of the effect of wars and plagues. Probably one third of Europe’s population died of plague.

Britain and France suffered, too, from the damages of war. In the 1330s England began a long struggle against the French Crown. France and England were exhausted economically by the cost of maintaining armies. England had the additional burden of fighting the Scots, and maintaining control of Ireland and Wales, both of which were trying to throw off English rule.

France had suffered for centuries from rebellious vassals, and the two most troublesome were the duke of Burgundy and the English king (who was still the king of France vassal as duke of Aquitaine), both of whom refused to recognise the French king’s overlordship.

To make the position stronger, the king of France began to interfere with England’s trade. England went to war because it could not afford the destruction of its trade with Flanders (now Belgium). Edward III declared war on France in 1337. His excuse was a bold one : he claimed the right to the French Crown. The war Edward began, later called the Hundred Years’ War, did not finally end until 1453, with the English Crown losing all its possessions in France except for Calais, a northern French port.

The Black Death.

The year 1348 brought an event of a similar devastating effect as the Hundred Years’ War. This was the terrible plague , known as the Black Death, which reached almost every part of Britain during 1348-9. Probably more than one third of the entire population of Britain died , and fewer than one person in ten who caught the plague managed to survive it. Whole villages disappeared, and some towns were almost completely deserted until the plague itself died out.

The Black Death killed mostly young and healthy. In 1300 the population of Britain had probably been over four mln. By the end of the fourteenth century it was probably hardly half that figure. It took until the seventeenth century before the population reached four mln again.

The Peasants’ Revolt.

It is surprising that the English never rebelled against Edward III, though he was busy with expensive wars against France and Scotland at the time of theBlack Death. The demands he made on merchants and peasants were enormous, but Edward III handled these people with skill.

Edward’s grandson, Richard , was less fortunate. He became king on his grandfather’s death in 1377 because his father had died a few months earlier, fie was only 11, and so others governed for him. His advisers introduced a tax payment for every person over the age of fifteen. This tax was enforced twice after and finally increased to three times the previous amount. As a result there was an immediate revolt in East Anglia and in Kent, two of the richer areas had become more aware and confident of their rights and their power.

There were also other reasons for revolt. The landlords had been trying to force the peasants back into serfdom because serf labour was cheaper than paid labour. Though the revolt only lasted for four weeks the peasants took control of much of London. When Wat Tyler, the leader of the revolt, was killed ,

Richard II promised to meet all the people’s demands, including an end to serfdom. Unfortunately he did not keep his promise. His officers hunted down other leaders of revolt and hanged them.

Seminar 5.

British History in Brief (Pan HI).

1 .The Tudors.

2. The Wars of the Roses.

3. The New Monarchy,

4.Social change during Henry' VIFs reign.

5. The Church in Tudor times.

6. I he Golden Age of English history.

7. The Navy and overseas expansion.

No sooner was the Hundred Years’ War over than a long power struggle (1455 - 1485) began for the English Crown between two families: the House of Lancaster and the House of York, the War of the Roses ended when Henry VII (Henry of Tudor) united the two rival houses, giving the origin to the Tudor dynasty.

During the fifteenth century the throne of England was claimed by representatives of two rival groups. The Lancastrians, whose symbol was a red rose, and the Yorkists, whose symbol was a white rose, had their own private armies, which meant constant challenges to the throne.

King Henry VI had become king as a baby. He grew up to be simple- minded and book-loving. He was supported by the «Lancastrians». The «Yorkists« supported Edward - the duke of York. Edward IV put Henry into the Tower of London. Nine years later a lancastrian army rescued Henry and chased Edward out of the country. But Edward returned to England in 1471 and defeated the Lancastrians while Henry VI died in the Tower of London almost certainly murdered.

When Edward IV died in 1483 his own two sons were put in the Tower by Richard of Gloucester. Richard took the Crown and became King Richard III. A month later the two princes were murdered. William Shakespeare’s play «Richard III», written a century later, accuses Richard of murder and almost everyone believed it. Richard III had a better reason than most to wish his two nephews dead, but his guilt has never been proved. Richard III was not popular. Lancastrians and Yorkists both disliked him. In 1485 a challenge with a very distant claim to royal blood landed in England. His name was Henry Tudor, duke of Richmond, he was half Welsh. Many lords both Lancastrians and Yorkists joined him. Henry Tudor’s army defeated Richard at Bosworth. Henry Tudor was crowned king immediately, on the battlefield.

The Wars of the Roses nearly destroyed the English idea of kingship for

ever.

But as a result the Tudor dynasty (1485-1603) came to stage. And it is often thought of as a most glorious period in English history. Henry VII built the foundations of a wealthy national state and a powerful monarchy.

The Tudor dynasty established a system of government departments, staffed by professionals who depended for their position on the monarch.

Henry VII is less well - known than his son Henry VIII or his granddaughter Elizabeth I. But he was far more important in establishing the new monarchy than either of them. He had the same ideas as the growing classes of merchants and gentry, and had based royal power on good business sense.

Henry VII firmly believed that war and glory were bad for business and that business was good for the state. During the fifteenth century England’s trading position had been badly damaged. Henry VII did everything to allow English trade to grow again. For example, only a year later after his victory in 1485 he made an important trade agreement with the Netherlands. Besides, he forbade anyone, except himself, to keep armed men. Henry used the «Court of Star Chamber» to deal with lawless nobles. He introduced heavy fines as punishment because this gave the Crown money. Henry wanted peace and prosperity. And so did merchants and gentleman farmers who supported him. Henry created a new nobility from among them. When Henry died in 1509 he left a prosperous country behind with its own fleet of merchant ships, because he realised its importance for trade purposes.

Henry VIII is one of the most well-known monarchs in British history', because he took six wives during his life.

Hemy VIII, quite unlike his father, was cruel, wasteful with money (he kept a magnificent court) and interested in pleasing himself. Henry VIII made the church in England truly English by breaking away from Roman Catholic Church. Henry disliked the power of the Church in England, since it was an international organisation, he could not completely control it. The Church was a huge landowner. And besides taxes paid to the Church reduced his own income. Henry VIII wanted all church lands to come under his control to give him a new source of income. Besides he had personal reasons for standing up to the authority of the Church.

In 1510 Henry had married Catherine of Aragon. By 1526 wanted to get divorced but the Pope did not allow him to do so. As a result he quarrelled with Rome and in 1531 Henry persuaded bishops to make him head of the Church in England.

As mentioned before, Henry’s break with the Roman Catholic Church was purely political and personal. He did not approve of the new ideas of Reformation Protestantism introduced by Martin Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Geneva. He still believed in the Catholic faith. He had also previously written a book criticising Protestantism, for which the Pope gave him the title Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith). The initials FD still appear on British coins today.

The rejection of the Roman Church accorded with a new spirit of patriotic confidence in England. It was therefore patriotism as much as religious conviction that had caused Protestantism to become the majority religion in England by the end of the 16^th century. It took a form known as Anglicanism.

Henry VIII died in 1547 leaving behind his sixth wife Catherine Parr and his three children. Mary, the eldest, was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon. Elizabeth was the daughter of his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Nine-year-old Edward w'as the son of Jane Seymour, the only wife whom Henry had really loved, but who had died giving birth to his only son.

Edward VI, Henry VIII’s son was only a child when he became king, so the country was ruled by a council, all the members of which were keen Protestant reformers because they had benefited from the sale of monastery lands. Most English people still believed in the old Catholic religion. Mary, the Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon, became Queen when Edward, aged 16. died in 1553.

Elizabeth, Mary’s half sister, was lucky to become Queen when Mary died in 1558. She was fortunate to escape death because Mary had considered killing her, since she was an obvious leader for Protestant revolt.

When she became Queen in 1558, Elizabeth I wanted to find a peaceful answer to the problems of the English Reformation. She wanted to bring together again those parts of English society which were in religious disagreement. And she wanted to make England prosperous.

Elizabeth I was an outstanding ruler. She restored national unity, opposing extremist doctrines and supporting a moderate form of Protestantism similar to that of her father’s. She brought glory to the new state by defeating the powerful navy of Spain, the greatest European power of the time.

The discovery of America placed Britain at the centre of the world’s trading routes and brilliant naval commanders (especially Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh) enabled Britain to dominate these trade routes.

During this period great trading companies, like the East India Company, were also established. Parliament was regularly called and consulted, while Justices of the Peace administered justice and carried out all the ordinary functions of local government. Though some historians believe Elizabeth 1weakened the quality of government by selling official posts. She did this to avoid asking Parliament for money.

During the Tudor age England experienced one of the greatest artistic periods in its history. And Elizabeth’s reign is considered by many as the Golden Age of English history, producing not only poets of the stature of Shakespeare and Spenser, but also prosperity for the entire nation.

Seminar 6.

British History (Part IV)

Civil War.