Lecture 2 history of the united kingdom

1. Primitive Society on the Territory of the British Isles. As far as historical research could establish, the first inhabitants of the British Isles were nomadic Stone Age hunters. They probably lived in the dry caves of the limestone and chalk hills. The Paleolithic population, unable with their rude stone tools to cope with the impassable woods and wild tangled bush growth that covered nearly the whole of the land, had to rely entirely on the bounty of nature. They must have lived on what the woods, the ocean and rivers had to offer. When they finally passed over to agriculture the first farmers had to cultivate some arable patches on the slopes of downs covering on Salisbury plain. Historians refer to the original population as the Scots and Picts with whom newcomers started merging. It was the geographical position of the land that attracted the newcomers: the way of Mediterranean civilization across the North Sea to Scandinavia, rich in trade amber, lay straight from the Iberian Peninsula between what later came to be Ireland and Britain. Those newcomers must have been a Mediterranean people. They were very numerous and rather well organized people. They brought their metalworking skills and the first real civilization to Britain. Their tools were more sophisticated than stone spades and mattocks of the people inhabiting the land. They must have been very good farmers to be able to feed a huge crowd of stone-hewers engaged in all those giant-like feats with only that primitive equipment at their disposal. These people are thought to have settled on the chalk hills of the Cotswolds, the Sussex and Dorset downs and the Chilterns. They were joined after a few centuries by some similar southern people who settled along the whole of the western coast, so that the modern inhabitants of Western England and Wales and Ireland have good archaeological reasons to claim them for their forefathers. Their civilization was quite advanced. An Alpine race came to subdue them, however, about 1700 B.C. from the east and south-east, from the Rhineland and Holland. Historians refer to these later immigrants who settled in the east, southeast and up the Thames Valley, as “the Beaker Folk” for they left a characteristic relic of their civilization, an earthenware-drinking vessel called “beaker”. They are believed to have been powerful and stocky; they surely had knowledge of bronze and employed metal tools and weapons. They gradually merged with the previous arrivals; in the Salisbury plain area evidence of both races was discovered, and the mixture was later supplemented by more arrivals, though never so numerous or important as those described.

A characteristic monument to this civilization, primordially rude and primordially majestic, made mysterious by the clarity-obliterating centuries, is the so-called Stonehenge, a sort of sanctuary erected by the abovementioned fusion of peoples on Salisbury Plain about eleven hundred years B.C. or somewhat earlier. This circular structure, or rather semi-circular ruin as it is now, was formed by a mere juxtaposition of tall narrowish slabs standing so as to provide support for the horizontal slab, capping those perpendicular props for all the world like houses built of playing cards by infant architects reckless enough to disregard the seemingly precarious balance of the hanging stones – whence the name of the structure, the “Hanging Stones”, Stonehenge.

The structure, however, proved to be quite durable since we are in a position to take pictures of it and wonder about its purpose after all these thirty centuries and more. The purpose was believed to be that of a place of worship, since the circular earthwork around the double horseshoe of the standing and hanging stones did not look like a fortification. The cult was guessed at, and the general supposition placed it as the suncult.

2. The Celtic Invasion. About 3000 years BC many parts of Europe, including the British Isles, were inhabited by a people called the Iberians who are still found in the North of Spain (later they were mixed with the Picts, Scots and Celts).

During the period from the 6^th-3^rd c. BC a people called the Celts, tall and fair, spread all over Europe from the east to the west. The Celts were ancient people who lived in Central and Western Europe during the New Stone Age, Bronze Age and moved to the British Isles from the continent, from what are now France and Germany during the Iron Age. Whole tribes migrated to the Isles, warriors with their chiefs, their women and their children. The invasion of these tribes known as Celtic tribes went on from the 8^th – 7^th cc. BC to the 1^st c. BC.

The first Celtic comers were the Gaels, but the Brythons arrived some two centuries later and pushed the Gaels to Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall (West Wales), taking possession of the south and east. The Scots crossed over to Ireland and settled there. Later the Scots returned to the larger island and in time the name of Scotland was given to the country. Powerful Celtic tribes, the Brythons (Britons), held most of the country, and the southern half of the island was named Britain after them.

Then after a considerable lapse of time, somewhat about the 1^st c. BC, the most powerful tribe, the Belgae, claimed possession of the south-east while part of the Brythons was pushed on to Wales though the rest stayed in what is England today, and probably gave their name to the whole country (Britain).

Thus the whole of Britain was occupied by the Celts who merged with the Picts and Scots, as well as with the Alpine part of the population; latter predominated in the west while the rest of the British Isles became distinctly Celtic in language and structure of society.

The Gaelic form of the Celtic dialects was spoken in Caledonia (modern Scotland) and Ireland, the Brythonic form in England and Wales.

This Celt-dominated mixture of the Picts, Scots and other ingredients came to be called Brythons or Britts.

The Celts of the British Isles were heathens until Christianity was brought to them by later invaders, the Romans. This religion was a weird mixture of heathenism, that is the worship of certain Gods and Goddesses, with the worship of Nature (the Sun, the Moon). The Serpent was the symbol of wisdom.

The Celts lived under the primitive system. It was a patriarchal clan society based on common ownership of land. Thus, they worked collectively in clans; they owned common property and were all equal.

In the last centuries BC and the 1^st centuries AD the Celts were in a period of transition from a primitive communal society to a class society.

3. The Roman Invasion. In the 1^st c. AD the Romans who ruled the entire civilized world at that time conquered Britain. Roman society differed greatly from that of the Celts. It was a slave society divided into antagonistic classes, the slaves and the slave-owners. One of the last countries to be conquered by Rome was France, or Gaul. The war against the Gauls, who were Celtic tribes, lasted for eight years. In the course of his campaign Julius Caesar reached the Channel. In 55 BC the Roman army of 10,000 men crossed the Channel and invaded Britain. The Celts fought bravely for their independence, but they were not strong enough, in spite of their courage, to drive the Romans off.

Although Julius Caesar came to Britain twice in the course of two years, he was not able to conquer it. In 43 AD the Emperor Claudius sent the strong 50-thousand army to Britain. The army landed in Kent and crossed the Thames. It was a military occupation that lasted four centuries. Since that time up to 410 Britain was one of the remote provinces of the Roman Empire. Other parts of the country were taken from time to time during next 40 years.

Britain became a sort of Celtic resistance centre. The suppression of the Celts was a hard job. The Romans kept pushing on and at the end of the 1c. AD, when Agricola was the chief Roman governor of Britain (78-85), he invaded Caledonia (Scotland).

Ireland was in those days inhabited by the Scots (in the 4^th c.). The Romans made no attempt to subdue Ireland.

As to Wales it belonged to the so-called military districts of Roman Britain together with the other mountainous areas of the north and west.

The same applied to Cornwall or West Wales as I was called.

London was made an inland port and lively trade was concentrated there since Roman Britain exported grain for the needs of the metropolis and other Roman provinces as well, skins of wild and domestic animals, tins, pearls and slaves.

The Romans were practical people. Straight roads were built for the legions to march quickly. Some of these roads can still be found in Britain today. Trade contacts were developing all through the 90 years separating Julius Caesar’s attempted invasion from the actual conquest.

The civilized Romans were city dwellers and they began to build towns and splendid villages (York, Gloucester, Lincoln, and London). The Roman towns were military stations (a fortified place or a camp or chester / caster in Roman) surrounded by walls for defence, which were guarded by the Roman warriors.

The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing. The written word was important for spreading ideas and culture. The Latin way of life – villas, arts, language and political organizations – all vanished, however, after the invasions from Northern Europe by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes from the 5^th c. onwards.

The Romans brought Christianity to the British Isles. The pagan peoples inhabiting there were easily converted to Christianity and the preachers from Rome brought with them learning and civilization. Christianity was an important step forward as compared to the heathenish Druidical rites.

In the year 122 the Roman Emperor Hadrian came to Britain. He was a great traveller and wherever he went in Roman Empire, he strengthened it frontiers.

Among the Celts inequality began to grow. The Celtic tribal chiefs agreed to recognize the Romans as their rulers. They became richer than other members of the tribe did. The noble Celts adopted the mode of life of their conquerors. They lived in rich houses and dressed like the Romans.

In the 3^rd-4^th centuries the power of the Roman Empire gradually weakened. Early in the 5^th century (407) the Roman legions were recalled from Britain to defend the central provinces from the attacks of the Barbaric and Germanic tribes. The safety of Rome itself was in question. So the Romans left Britain, and failed to return.

4. The Anglo-Saxon Invasion. Towards the end of the 4^th c. barbaric tribes invaded AD Europe. After the Roman legions left Britain the Celts remained independent but not for long. From the middle of the 5^th c. they had to defend the country against the attacks of the Germanic tribes from the Continent. In the 5^th century first the Jutes and then other Germanic tribes, the Saxons and the Angles, began to migrate to Britain. They were sea-robbers, wild and fearless people. The Anglo-Saxons were tall, strong men with blue eyes and long blond hair.

In 449 the Jutes landed in Kent. That was the beginning of the conquest. The British natives fought fiercely against the invaders and it took more than a hundred and fifty years for the Angles, Saxons and Jutes to conquer the country.

The Britons could never drive them away. They were forced to retreat to the west of Britain. Those who stayed became slaves of the Anglo-Saxons.

For a long time the tribes of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes fought against one another for supreme power. Britain split up into seven kingdoms: Kent, Sussex, Essex, Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria.

The new conquerors brought about some changes. They disliked towns and villages. They destroyed the Roman towns and villages. The roads were broken. The Jutes, Saxons and Angles were closely alike in speech and customs. They gradually merged into one people. They called the Celts “welsh” which means “foreigners” as they did not understand the Celtic language. The Anglo-Saxon villages were small. Nearly all the villagers were engaged in cultivating the land. Corn was grown on the arable land – that is ploughed land. They used the two-field system (the land was given a rest every second year). The plough was made of wood covered with iron. Besides arable - farming, they continued cattle-breeding, hunting and fishing. There was very little trading at that time. Roads were very poor. Thus, natural economy predominated in Britain in early medieval times. By the beginning if the 9^th century changes had taken place in Anglo-Saxon society. Rich landowners were given great power over the peasants. The king’s warriors and officials held more land and they ruled the country. From tribal organization the society passed to the feudal class organization.

5. The Scandinavian Invasion. Establishment of the Kingdom of England. At the end of the 8^th century another branch of the Germanic people began to attack Britain. There were two Scandinavian peoples, the Danes and Norwegians. The Danes became the invaders of England and the Norwegians invaded Scotland and Ireland.

The Danes were of the same Germanic race as the Anglo-Saxons themselves. It was in 793 that the Danes carried out their first raids in Britain. Thus began the fourth conquest of Britain. Their raids were successful because the kingdom of England had neither a regular army nor a fleet in the North Sea to meet them. Gradually they began settling in Britain.

The Anglo-Saxons understood that their small kingdoms must unite in order to struggle against the Danes.

In the 9^th c. Egbert, the first king of Wessex, one of the strongest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, united several neighbouring kingdoms. The united kingdom got the name of England and Egbert became the first king of the united country.

In the 10^th century under the rule of Alfred the Great the Saxon monarchy was further consolidated and won several victories over the Danes.

Alfred gathered a big army and gave the Danes a great battle at Maldon in 891. The Danes defeated in this battle, but still remained very strong and dangerous.

Alfred hurried to make peace with them. He had to give the Danes the greater portion of England. The kingdom that was left in Alfred’s possession was Wessex.

There were some years of peace, and during this time Alfred built the first English navy.

The Danes were not driven out of the country, but they were made subjects of Wessex. English kings once more ruled all England. The Danes were not very much different from the Anglo-Saxons among whom they lived because they were also of Germanic origin as we mentioned before. The Danes influenced the development of the country greatly. They were good sailors and traders. They were skillful shipbuilders. The whole country formed the united kingdom.

At the beginning of the 11^th century England was conquered by the Danes once more. The Danish king Canute (1017-1035) became king of Denmark, Norway and England. He made England the centre of his power. He managed to unite the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes. Britain was divided into two parts: the northern part ruled by the Danes and Wessex in the south ruled by English kings.

The Danes continued their attacks on Wessex and finally occupied the whole of the territory. Canute was a strong monarch and gave England peace for nearly 20 years. But he was often away from England in his kingdom of Denmark and so he divided the country into four parts called earldoms. They were Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia. The earls ruled over great territories and became very powerful. The clergy also grew more powerful.

When Canute died in 1035, his two sons ruled England for a short time one after the other. With the death of Canute’s second son in 1042, the line of Danish kings came to an end and the Danish rule was over. An Anglo-Saxon king from Godwin group came to the throne. It was Edward the Confessor. He got the name of Confessor for being a very religious man. The famous Westminster Abbey in London was built during his reign. When he died in 1066 he was buried in the Abbey. .

6. The Norman Conquest of England. In the 11^th century England was invaded by the Normans. This was the seventh and the last invasion of England.

Many changes came about in the life of the Normans and the Danes after the 9^th century. By the 11^th century the Danes had finally settled down as subjects of the English kings. As time went on they gradually mixed with the Anglo-Saxons among whom they lived. But the Normans who had settled down in France lived among the French people, who were different people, with different manners, customs and language. These descendants of the Northmen who had settled in northern France in the 9^th century became the new conquerors of England.

In 1066 William began to gather an army to invade Britain. The battle between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons took place on the 14^th of October 1066 at Hastings. William’s army was much stronger and superior to the Saxon’s “fyrd”. And with the death of their leader Harold the English army understood that the battle was lost.

This victory at Hastings was only the beginning of the conquest. It took several years for William and his barons to subdue the whole of England. He ruled England for 21 years (1066 - 1087).To protect himself from possible attacks of the Saxons, William ordered to build a strong tower on the left bank of the Thames. This tower still stands there. It is called the White Tower because it is built of white stone. Later other buildings were added and the whole place was surrounded by a stone wall to form a strong fortress, which we know, now as the Tower of London.

William the Conqueror took lands from Saxon nobles who helped Harold to fight the battle at Hastings and he distributed them among his Norman barons who became new masters of the land.

William and his barons, as well as all the other Normans, who had come with him, did not know the Anglo-Saxon language and they did not want to learn it. And for a long time two languages were spoken in the country. Norman-French was the official language of the upper class and the government. Common Saxon people (the lower classes) and the few Saxon nobles who remained alive spoke Anglo-Saxon (English).

7. English Kings of the 11^th and 12^th centuries. After William the Conqueror’s death in 1087, three more kings of the Norman dynasty ruled England: his two sons, William II (1087-1100) and Henry I (1100-1135), and his grandson, the son of his daughter, Stephen (11-35-11-54).

After Stephen’s death, the English throne passed to the Plantagenet dynasty. William the Conqueror’s son Henry I had a daughter, Matilda, who was married to the French count of Anjou, Geoffrey Plantagenet. Their son Henry Plantagenet was made King of England after Stephen’s death in 1154.

Richard I the Lion-Heart (1198-1199) was the second king of the Plantagenet dynasty. He was famous for his good education (he knew Latin and was fond of music and poetry) and courage. His contemporaries described him as a man of excellent manners, kind to his friends and cruel and merciless to his enemies. Richard was seldom in England, spending most of his time taking part in Crusades in Palestine. At home the barons, in the king’s absence, strengthened their castles and acted like little kings.

Prince John, the king’s brother, with the help of the barons, tried to seize the English throne. Common people were cruelly oppressed.

Richard the Lion-Heart was killed in one of the battles in France, and the English throne passed to his brother John.

At that time great territories in France belonged to England. Naturally, the French kings and nobles did not like it and wanted to win back these lands, so the English and the French waged continuous wars in France. King John wanted a lot of money to wage these wars. He made the barons give him that money, and the barons did not like it. There was constant struggle for power between the king and the barons.

The power of the Norman Barons gradually increased and during the reign of the Plantagenet began, together with the Church, to challenge the King’s absolute power, which resulted barons’ revolt.

8. Great Charter (1215) and Parliament. The Middle Ages in England was a period of feudal wars, a period of struggle for power between the kings and the Church, between the kings and powerful barons. The kings took large sums of money from the barons for the wars in Europe. Those who refused to give money were arrested.

In 1215 the barons revolted and soon had a large army against the king. King John stood alone. He was forced to sign the Great Charter (Magna Carta) at Runnymede, a document where the rights of the Englishmen were written down. Of course, the Great Charter did not mean freedom for the masses of the people who at that time were serfs. But later on, in the 17^th and 19^th centuries, when the English people revolted against oppression, they took the Great Charter as the banner of the revolution.

The Great Charter contained a long list of limitations to the King’s power and these rights obtained by the Barons were eventually extended to the entire population. A council of twenty-five barons was organized to control the king. That was the beginning of the English Parliament. At first the great barons dominated it, but at the end of the 13^th century the English Parliament was divided into the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

The origins of Parliament are to be found in the reign of John’s successor Henry III. It was a meeting of the King and his Barons and servants at which various administrative and financial problems were discussed. In order to make it easier to put the decisions taken into practice, each Shire had to elect a number of knights to attend these meetings and report the decisions to the Shires. Edward I continued this experiment and in 1295 called a parliament that became known as the Model Parliament, at which barons, earls and high clergy (bishops and abbots) were present, together with the knights representing the shires and boroughs. The “House of Commons” as a separate Chamber resulted from the unofficial meetings of these knights. The person chosen to speak for these “commoners” in Parliament became known as the Speaker.

9. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. In the 14^th c. the English kings tried to keep control of the land they ruled in France. The Hundred Years War (1337-1453) fought between France and England had a devastating effect on the English economy.

The people of England had to pay for the war and the Black Death (a plague in 1348 that killed a third of the population of England). In 1381 a tax of one shilling a head was taken by the government from every man or woman above fifteen years of age. The high taxation led to such extreme hardship for the peasant class that there was a revolt in 1381. The peasants did not want to pay the tax. In some villages they attacked and killed tax collectors. Then they gathered in two large armies and went to London, the city which after the Norman Conquest became the capital of England.

In London the peasants had many supporters. They helped the peasants to enter the city. The peasants surrounded the Tower of London where the king lived at that time. Wat Tyler, one of the leaders of the revolt, was sent to the king, but the king’s soldiers killed him.

The peasants then left London, but on the way home they were attacked by the king’s soldiers. Hundreds of peasants were killed. Thus the king put an end to the revolt. But the peasants’ revolt of 1381 was an important event in the history of England. Although the Peasants’ Revolt was soon put down, it showed that a serf wanted to be a free peasant farmer. It led to greatly improved conditions for the peasant class and was the first step towards the ending of the feudal system in England.

10. England under the Tudors. No sooner was the Hundred Years War over than a long power struggle (1455-1485) began for the English Crown between the two parts of the English royal family. Each of them wanted its own leader to be king. One family was called Lancaster and was represented by a red rose, and the other was called York, and was represented by a white rose. The Wars of Roses ended at the battle of Bosworth Field, when Henry VII (Henry Tudor) united the two rival houses, giving origin to the Tudor dynasty (connected with the English royal family that ruled from 1485-1603).

During Henry’s reign the medieval period came to a close. Men were free to go and settle wherever they liked, the power of the towns with their educated and industrious middle classes, began to make itself felt; the printing was introduced which enabled the diffusion of knowledge.

Henry’s son, Henry VIII (1509-1547), was a typical Renaissance prince: handsome, learned and ambitious. He also had an instinctive understanding of his times. It was his creation of the Royal Navy that enabled England to realize her imperialistic ambitions under Elizabeth and defy the Pope and the catholic powers of Europe.

Elizabeth I (1558-1603) 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. Her 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. 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 England 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.

11. The Rise of England in the 16^th century. During the Middle Ages England was more rural than, for example France. Its towns were smaller and far away from the centres of the world trade. In the 16^th century they began to grow and England became one of the most powerful countries in the world.

One of the most important factors was the early decline of feudalism and the rise of capitalism. At that time English farmers began to grow a lot of sheep for wool. Those peasants who had to leave their villages found work in the growing textile industry in the towns. The English woollen cloth was exported to many European countries.

To develop trade with other countries England built ships. After the great geographical discoveries, big ships were sent not only to Europe, but also to India and America. The growing trade brought wealth to the new capitalists in England.

England also built fast ships for the war with Spain. At that time Spain had the largest and strongest fleet in the world. In 1588 England won a great victory over the Spanish fleet and became one of the greatest sea powers in the world.

12. The English Bourgeois Revolution (1640-1660). With the development of capitalism, the English bourgeoisie was becoming richer and wanted to have a say in the government. The first 40 years of the 17^th century was a period of growing conflict between the king and the Parliament, representing the interests of the bourgeoisie.

The Stuart kings James I and Charles I followed the medieval notions of monarchy, ignoring Parliament.

King Charles I was at war with Spain and France and wanted money for it. He raised taxes without permission. The Parliament refused to give the money. Then the king dismissed the Parliament and for more than ten years ruled England without it, until he needed its help to raise the money to fight the war against Scotland.

When the Parliament opened again in 1640, it opposed the king. Both sides began to prepare openly for war and eventually it broke out in 1642. The majority of the nobles supported Charles and the majority of the gentry supported Parliament in the fight over the power. The king and his soldiers were in Oxford. The soldiers of the Parliament (the Parliamentarian Roundheads) with Oliver Cromwell at their head were in London. The Parliament won a victory (1648) in the civil war, which lasted several (12) years.

In 1649, King Charles I was executed as an enemy of his country for treason, and England was proclaimed a republic with Oliver Cromwell at its head. Oliver Cromwell became the Protector of the new republic.

But the people were disappointed with the result of the revolution. Two years after Cromwell’s death (1658), the monarchy was restored. The government was too weak and the new Parliament decided to have a king. In 1660 Charles II was proclaimed the king of England. The English Revolution ended in a compromise between the bourgeoisie and the monarchy.

13. The Restoration of the Monarchy. The monarchy (together with the Anglican Church and the House of Lords) was restored in 1660, two years after Cromwell’s death, when Charles II was invited to sit on the throne. The country was tired of the harsh morality of Puritan rule. The Plague, which killed almost 70,000 of London’s inhabitants, and the Great Fire (1666), which destroyed most of the city during his reign, were considered signs of God’s wrath by the Puritans.

Charles had managed to restore some power by the time James II came to the throne. But the Parliament’s support was necessary to govern the country. Parliament was dominated by two groups: the Whigs, who had tried to exclude Charles’ Catholic brother from the throne, and the Tories, the conservative aristocracy. Charles filled civil and military posts with Catholics at the time when the Protestants were killed in France. This fact so angered Parliament that the Tories and Whigs agreed to invite the Protestant William of Orange and Mary (James II’s daughter) to take the Crown and joint sovereigns. This event was called the Glorious Revolution (1688), because it was bloodless. Since that time it was obligatory for the sovereign to be a Protestant. Catholicism was outlawed for all Englishmen, including the King.

14. Victorian Britain. During Queen Victoria’s sixty-four reign (1837-1901) the British Empire, led by a number of great statesmen and supported by great industrial innovations, grew to a size so vast that “the sun never sets upon it”. This was empire, whose creation began initially from commercial motives. But later on some strategic and missionary reasons were also added. With the course of time the Empire comprised about a quarter of the world’s population and land surface.

Victoria’s long reign saw many changes in British institutions and the British “way of life”. She rejected the amusements and life of the aristocracy. Such position enabled the common people to identify themselves with this simple wife and widow, which led to a revival of popular support for the monarchy. Above all, her essentially middle class views and lifestyle led to an affirmation of values to which the Thatcher Government of the 1980s wished to return.

15. The Industrial Revolution (1760s-1850s). At the same time as the middle classes were expanding in Victorian Britain, so were the working classes. The Industrial Revolution had entered its second stage: new industries were developed; new large factories using new machinery were built. Britain’s products were exported all over the world.

In the period between 1760s and 1850s Britain became the first industrial country in the world known as “the workshop of the world”.

Early industrialization in Britain was connected with many important technical inventions, which were made at that time. The people learned to use coal for smelting iron. That was a very important factor for the development of modern metallurgy. Iron was used for various purposes: the first iron bridge was built in 1779 and the first iron ship in 1970.

As you know, the machines in the first factories were driven by water power. In 1764 James Watt invented the steam engine and twenty years later steam engines were used in the first factories of textile industry. The steam engine could drive various machines, carry goods and people more quickly and more cheaply. In 1807 Robert Fulton (an American) constructed the first steamship, and the first steam locomotive was constructed by George Stephenson in England in 1814. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened in 1830.

Technical progress was also made in agriculture. For example, the invention of the threshing machine not only made the farmer’s work easier and quicker, but also “freed” a large number of people for work in industry.

This period in Britain’s history is sometimes called the Industrial Revolution.

Parliament was forced to come to terms with the new social conditions created by the powerful working class movement. The Reform Act of 1832, which granted the land to tenants, was followed by other urgently needed social reforms: the creation of the police force; free, compulsory education (1870); gradual legal recognition of trade unions; the extension of the vote.

16. The Chartist Movement (1837-1848). With the development of industrial capitalism, the industrial proletariat appeared in Britain by the end of the 18^th century.

The Industrial Revolution and the wars for colonies did not make the working people of Britain rich. The new machines left many workers and peasants out of work. Thousands of people immigrated to the United States, Canada, later to Australia, New Zealand.

Life in the new factories and towns in Britain was one of terrible hardship. Men, women and children worked fifteen or sixteen hours a day in dangerous, unhealthy conditions for poor wages and lived in dirty slums, so vividly described by Charles Dickens in the novel “Bleak House”.

The industrial workers began to organize trade unions and fight for their interests and rights.

In 1837, London Working Men’s Association prepared a petition and called it the People’s Charter. The workers demanded social and political reforms. The Charter was sent to other industrial towns of Britain. The workers held meetings and demonstrations and signed the Charter. The Charter was also red in Parliament, but the members of Parliament rejected it. There were battles in the streets, strikes all over the country. Many workers were arrested and sent to prison.

Chartism was the first working class political movement in Britain and in the world.

17. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. In the 17^th century Britain had a large fleet and established its first overseas colonies. Its ships carried the products of the British industries all over the world and brought back food and raw materials.

Large territories in India, Australia, America and Africa became parts of the British Empire. Britain sent soldiers and clerks to these overseas lands to look after its property. Many people from Britain moved to these lands to live there. Some colonies were self-governing or dominions, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Others like India and Africa were ruled by governors from Britain. The English language became an official language of these countries. At one time the British Empire covered one fifth of the earth and had one quarter of the world’s population.

Victoria’s death in 1901 coincided with the beginning of the decline in the power of the Empire. The white settler colonies had always enjoyed considerable self-government and in the first decade Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand were allowed to draw up their constitutions to become dominions. The non-white colonies were not so fortunate: India, “the jewel of the Crown” of the Victoria’s Empire, was subjected to an often harsh military rule, and vast areas of Africa remained firmly under British domination.

At the end of the 19^th century Britain began to lose industrial supremacy to the United States and Germany. The capitalists exported money to different countries, where labour and raw materials were cheap, but at home industry and agriculture were not progressing. The peoples of the colonist countries began to struggle for independence.

The major events of the 20^th century intensified national liberation movement in India, Burma and Pakistan. After the Second World War these and many other countries in Africa became independent.

18. World War I. Britain was not the only European country with an Empire. France, Germany, Belgium, Austria and Hungary were all imperialist powers, and other countries such as Italy also dreamed of empire. British industry no longer enjoyed the domination of world markets that it had in the 19^th c.; Germany was rapidly becoming the dominant economic power in Europe.

The rivalry between the great European powers led inevitably to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. It was one of the bloodiest wars in the history of mankind. When it ended in 1918 in victory for the allied Powers of Britain, France, Russia, America and Italy, more than 10 million men had been killed. In Britain the only positive outcome of the war was granting the right to vote (1919) to women – so great was their contribution to the war effort.

19. The Great Depression. The war was followed by a period of severe hardship throughout Europe. The depressed economies struggled to recover from the war effort, whereas American and Asian economies were expanding. It was a period of great social unrest and mistrust between the various classes. Unemployment was high, wages low and there were numerous strikes, including the General Strike in 1926 by all the unions in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the owners of the coal mines cutting miners’ wages.

The Great Depression of the 1930s actually began with the collapse of the American financial markets (the Wall Street crash) in 1929. In Britain unemployment reached huge proportions: over three million people, out of the total workforce of 14 million, were out of work.

20. World War II. Britain was soon involved in another war, for which it was ill-prepared. The Prime Minister Chamberlain had done everything possible to appease Germany (including accepting its occupation of Czechoslovakia) while the country tried to rearm. But Britain and France were still not ready when they declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 after Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Germany swept through Europe and was nearly to invade Britain. And it was a series of heavy defeats in the Soviet Union that prevented Germany from landing its forces in Britain. The opening of the Second Front enabled Britain and her allies to stop Germany once more. The war cost Britain a quarter of its national wealth.

21. Post-War Reconstruction. The war produced the devastating effect upon the country. The Labour government under Prime Minister Clement Attlee, using the planning experience gained during the war, nationalized the railways and the coal, steel, shipbuilding, gas and electricity industries, and extended the social services. These services included such things as insurance against unemployment, sickness and old age, a weekly benefit for minimum needs, and free medical health care for everyone. This legislation came to be known as the Welfare State.

In foreign policy India and Pakistan, together with a number of other former colonies, were finally granted independence. Britain made the painful decision of turning its back on its former Empire to strengthen ties with Europe. The first sign of this was Britain’s decision to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

22. The Affluent Society. Then there followed a period of economic growth and prosperity under three consecutive Conservative Governments. During the 1950s, there was a period of massive growth in the private sector. This growth was seen in the newer industries, particularly car and aircraft production. Wages increased by 40% in real terms. Most families could now afford a car, a fridge and a television set, and people began to talk of an affluent society. By the start of the 1960s, however, the production was beginning to slow, while wages and prices continued to rise.

Abroad, the British Empire was almost completely dismantled. That was generally a peaceful process. The newly independent nations joined the commonwealth. The decline of Britain as a world power was highlighted, when Britain was forced to withdraw its troops in the face of world opposition after occupying the Suez Canal (1956). Moreover, it had to accept the conditions laid down by Egypt.

23. The 60s and 70s. Britain’s loss of influence in world affairs was one of the reasons why the Labour Government supported Britain’s application for membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). The Government faced huge economic problems. In this situation the Government had to freeze wages to overcome economic difficulties. Numerous strikes and student protests revealed the general social unrest and mistrust in the democratic institutions. That is why Labour Government lost the 1970 election.

Nevertheless the early 1960s were, for the young people of Britain, a time of great excitement and liberation. Teenagers had jobs, money in their pockets, and the freedom to spend it. They spent it on clothes and entertainment and above all on records. The “Swinging Sixties”, as they came to know, saw an explosion in the world of pop groups of those years – The Beatles, The Rolling Stones – became the heroes of young people not just in Britain but all over the world.

The Tory Government of 1970-1974 faced the same problems of a low growth rate, high trade deficits, spiralling inflation and high wage claims.

The Government was frightened by numerous strikes, and the things went from bad to worse. The massive increase in oil prices was followed by the Arab-Israel war and the miner’s strikes in 1973. The country came to an almost complete economic standstill, as electricity was supplied to industry for 3 days a week only. The only high point in this period of gloom was Britain’s entry into the EEC on January 1, 1973. The recovery took place when the International Monetary Fund began a rescue operation at the end of 1976. This recovery was also due to the high levels of oil production in the North Sea.

24. Britain and Ireland. British colonization of Ireland began in the Middle Ages under Henry II, but the real conquest of Ireland dates from the beginning of the 17^th c., when James I of England began the systematic expropriation of land from the Irish by sending anti-Catholic Protestants from Scotland to settle in Ulster, the north-eastern region of Ireland, which had always put up the greatest resistance to English rule. Fifty years later, Oliver Cromwell put down the Irish rebellions with extreme ferocity. In 1690 the Irish made another attempt to resist the conquest of their country by allying themselves with James II of England. He tried to recover his crown after the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, which had replaced him with William III. Their defeat at the Battle of Boyne gave ascendancy to the pro-British Protestants, which had lasted in Ulster until the present day.

The Irish continued to resist. By the end of the 19^th century, most people in Britain Favoured Home Rule for Ireland, but the Protestant Unionists in the north were strong enough to prevent it. In 1916, however, the Irish rebelled once again, when a group of Irish Republicans staged the famous Easter Rising in Dublin. The uprising was put down, and the leaders were executed, but the brutal methods used by the British troops strengthened the Irish resistance. Their resistance led to the formation of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which fought for five years against the British occupation. This resulted, in 1921, in independence of 26 counties of southern Ireland (which became the Republic of Eire in 1949).

25. Ulster. Ulster, however, was allowed to remain within the United Kingdom. The ruling Unionist politicians in the Ulster Parliament used their power to discriminate against the Catholic minority (about 30% of the population) as regards jobs, housing, and the voting system. But the British Government continued to ignore all complaints. These injustices gave rise to a civil rights movement among Catholics and Republicans in Northern Ireland in the 1950s. This resulted in only the more violent reaction of the Ulster unionists.

Eventually, in 1969, the British government sent in the British Army “to restore peace” and safeguard the Catholic minority against the attacks of the Unionists. Greeted at first as “saviours” by the Catholic population, the British troops soon, however, came to be regarded as enemies. Relations reached their worst point in 1972 on Bloody Sunday when British troops fired on a civil rights demonstration in Derry, killing people.

In reaction to this and other atrocities, the IRA began a military and terrorist campaign against British rule, which is still continuing. Since that time the British government has tried to solve the “Irish Question”. This has been impossible to achieve, because the great mass of Catholics in Ulster see no solution except re-unification with the Irish Republic. As for the Unionist majority, they violently oppose the re-unification.

26. The Commonwealth. Beyond its immediate foreign policy priorities, its ties with Europe and the United States, Britain has important relations across the rest of the world, primarily through the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of members of the former British Empire and Colonies, which allows for a new relationship between Britain and its former possessions. Its purpose is the promotion of international understanding and cooperation by working in partnership with each other. It is as much an association of peoples as of states, with a plethora of informal non-governmental links. There were only 11 members in 1960, which grew to 21 by 1965, when Britain resigned the permanent chairmanship in favour of an international secretariat, and then 53 in 1998. Some have resigned, for example Ireland; others have been suspended, like Fiji and Nigeria, while others which withdrew to avoid expulsion have returned to the fold, like Pakistan and South Africa. Recent admissions have included countries with no previous connection with Britain, for example in 1995 the ex-Portuguese territory of Mozambique. Yemen and the Embryo State of Palestine have both expressed interests in membership. The Queen is titular head of the Commonwealth, even though half the member states are republics. She remains an ardent supporter of the Commonwealth idea.

Why is the Commonwealth so popular? A chief reason is that it is an international forum that lacks the formality and pomposity of the United Nations. It is a comfortable form of international cooperation where people can talk confidentially without feeling threatened. It hasn’t got a centre or periphery. All have equal status. One of the major attractions for the Prime ministers of the member states is that at the conferences they have direct personal contact with each other, frequently without any officials present. The Commonwealth also operates by consensus rather than by voting. This allows for a more gradualist approach to problems than is possible in the United Nations. The heads of government of member states meet every two years to consider current issues, and sometimes to make declarations on agreed principles.

The larger the Commonwealth becomes, the harder it is to ensure it remains a place for the uninhibited exchange of views and to achieve consensus.