Dozen Lessons From British History. Reader

УДК 802/809.1;93/99 ББК 81.2Англ.-923;63.3(0)(4(Вел)

C o m p i l e d b y :

Svetlana Aleshko-Ozhevskaya

Tatiana Tarasova

Dozen Lessons From British History: READER. 3rd edition. — М.: Moscow University Press, 2015. — 64 с.

ISBN 978-5-19-011090-6

READER: Dozen Lessons From British History highights the most important periods in the history of Britain, stresses the role of particular monarchs, public leaders in political, economic, social, cultural and legal reforms. The READER helps to acquire background knowledge and cross-cultural cometence for better understanding of spoken and written English and further studies in law, history, political and social sciences.

Key words: William the Conqueror, Henry I, Henry II, King John, Edward I, Henry VII Tudor, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, the Stuarts, Charles I, Charles II, James II, Glorious Revolution, Robert Walpole, The Victorian Era, Disraeli, British Empire, World War I, World War II, Margaret Thatcher’s policies.

УДК 802/809.1;93/99 ББК 81.2Англ.-923;63.3(0)(4(Вел)

Contents

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Lesson 1

William the Conqueror

(1066–1087)

William I was about thirty-nine when he took the throne of England. He ruled as the Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and as King of England from 1066 to 1087. He is commonly referred to as William the Conqueror or William the Bastard.

He introduced continental European feudalism into England. His reign also saw changes to English law, a programme of building and fortification and changes in the English language.

Conquest of England (1066)

William insisted that Edward the Confessor had promised him the succession in 1051, but both the event and its validity have been challenged. Harold Godwinson was crowned King of England on the day of the Confessor’s funeral. When the news reached William, he called his nobles to council and sent to Harold, calling him to resign the crown. Harold raised a large fleet of ships and mobilized a force of militia. He then arranged these around the coasts, anticipating attack from several directions. King Harold had a rebell brother in Flanders who was a vassal of the King of Norway. This brother and the Norwegian king, joining their forces against England, won a fight and then besieged York. Harold marched to give them an instant battle. This battle is known as the Battle of Stamford Bridge. And such a fight did Harold lead against that force that his brother and the Norwegian king, and every chief of note in all their host, were left dead upon the field. The victorious army marched to York.

During this time the barons of France leagued around William for the invasion of England. Pope Alexander II sent to Normandy a consecrated banner and blessed the enterprise. William then openly began assembling an army in Normandy, consisting of his own army, French mercenaries, and numerous foreign knights anticipating plunder of English land.

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Three days after the Battle of Stamford Bridge, William arrived with his army in Pevensey Bay, and then moved to Hastings, a few miles to the East, where he built a castle. Harold hurried from York to London. Within a week his army was ready. On the 13 of October, William received news that an army led by Harold was approaching from London, and at dawn the next day, William left the castle with his army and advanced towards the English army, whom had taken a defensive position atop a ridge around seven miles from Hastings.

The Battle of Hastings lasted all of that day, resulting in the deaths of Harold and two of his brothers. At dusk, the English army made their last stand. By that night, the battle was over, and the English army was defeated. William’s next target was London. When William reached Berkhamstead a few days later, the city authorities in London surrendered, and William was crowned king of England on Christmas day — December 25, 1066.

Although the south of England submitted quickly to Norman rule, resistance continued in the North for six more years until 1072. Harold’s illegitimate sons came over from Ireland with some ships against the Normans but were defeated. Uprisings occurred in the Welsh Marches and at Stafford. Separate attempts at invasion by the Danes and the Scots also occurred. William’s defeat of these led to what became known as the harrying of the North. The last serious resistance came with the Revolt of the Earls in 1075.

William’s reign

William took over the most efficiently governed kingdom in Europe, but he soon grasped the need to reinforce its system of central national government. This meant trying to provide some central system of justice over which the king had control, for William understood that it was only by making laws which had to be obeyed and could be enforced throughout the land that he could exercise real power and control over his subjects.

The great ‘legal’ foundation which he laid was an import from northern France, the Curia Regis (King’s Court). This was not just a court of law, but a royal household. Its council comprised the king and some of the most powerful men in the land. William used it as an instrument both to govern the country, and as a court for deciding disputes. When William’s court progressed, he and the most influential courtiers attached to his Curia Regis would listen

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to those who came to him with their ‘grievances’ — their complaints or accusations — and they would give judgement.

William built a strong centralized administration staffed with his Norman supporters. He built castles everywhere. These were often hurried affairs in a continental “motte and bailey” design, usually in wood, only later replaced with stone. Most were built with forced local labour on land confiscated from English rebels. The castles were given to Norman barons to hold for the king. In theory every inch of English land belonged to the crown and William’s vassals had to swear fealty directly to the crown. Contrast this with the earlier Saxon practice where each man swore allegiance to the person of his lord. Now William was making loyalty to the nation, in the form of the crown, supercede loyalty to the individual person of a lord.

One policy that caused deep resentment under William I, and even hatred under his successor William II, was the taking over of vast tracts of land for the king’s forest. In some areas whole villages were destroyed and the people driven out; elsewhere, people living in forest areas, though not necessarily removed, were subjected to a severe system of law with drastic penalties for poaching.

Anglo-Saxon churchmen were replaced gradually by Normans appointed by William. Under the administration of Lanfranc, Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, new monasteries were founded, while rules and discipline were enforced more stringently. Church and lay justice were separated; the bishops were given their own courts, allowing common law to evolve independently. William retained the right to appoint bishops and impeach abbots. He used these churchmen as his major administrators, which made perfect sense, for they were by far the best educated members of society. Indeed, they were often the only educated members of society.

The Conqueror greatly strengthened the administration of justice in his new land. He occasionally appointed justiciars to preside over local cases and at times named commissioners to act as his deputies in the localities. There were a number of great trials during the reign. On occasion jurors were summoned to give a collective verdict under oath. Historians have debated as to whether juries were introduced as a result of the Viking conquests or were a Norman innovation, derived from Carolingian practice in France. Whichever argument is correct, it is evident that, under the Normans, juries came into more frequent use. William introduced one measure to protect his followers: he made the local community of the hundred responsible for the murder of any Norman.

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William had a great survey made of all the land in England, which was entered as the property of its new owners on a roll called Domesday Book (also known as Domesday, or Book of Winchester). William needed information about the country he had just conquered so he could administer it. One of the main purposes of the survey was to find out who owned what so they could be taxed on it, and the judgement of the assessors was final— whatever the book said about who owned the property, or what it was worth, was the law, and there was no appeal. It was written in Latin, although there were some vernacular words inserted for native terms with no previous Latin equivalent and the text was highly abbreviated.

In 1087 William fell ill. For six weeks he lay dying and then he made his will, giving England to his second son William Rufus, Normandy to his first son Robert, and five thousand pounds to Henry. He ordered money to be given to many English churches and monasteries and released his prisoners of state, some of whom had been confined in his dungeons twenty years. In September 1087 he died.

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Lesson 2

Henry I (1100–1135)

A good politician and administrator, Henry I was the ablest of the Conqueror’s sons. At his coronation on August 5, 1100, he issued a charter intended to win the support of the nation. This propaganda document known as the Charter of Liberties, in which Henry promised to give up many practices of the past, demonstrates how oppressive Norman government had become. Henry promised to resign Church property which his brother William Rufus had seized, and guaranteed that reliefs, sums paid by feudal vassals when they took over their fathers’ estates, would be “just and legitimate.” He also promised to do no wrong to the nobles, and to restore to the people the laws of Edward the Confessor, with all the improvements of William the Conqueror. The people were attached to their new king, because he was an Englishman by birth, not a Norman.

The conquest of Normandy was an important priority for Henry but before the king began to deal with his elder brother Robert he removed and disgraced all the favourites of the late king. In Normandy Robert having returned from Jerusalem found people waiting to urge him to assert his claim to the English crown and declare a war against King Henry. This, after a great loss of time, he did. By 1105 Henry took the offensive, and in September 1106 he won a decisive battle at Tinchebray that gave him control of the whole of Normandy. Robert was captured and was to spend the rest of his 80 years in castle dungeons. His son, William Clito, escaped and remained until his death in 1128 a thorn in Henry’s flesh. Success in Normandy was followed by wars against Louis VI of France, but by 1120 Henry was everywhere successful in both diplomacy and war. He had arranged a marriage for his only legitimate son, William, to Matilda, daughter of Fulk of Anjou, and had received Fulk’s homage for Maine.

Henry proved to be a capable ruler. He put an end to most Welsh raids and kept Scotland under control. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle wrote that ‘in his days no man dared to wrong another.’

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Better educated than his father or brothers, he had a genuine interest in learning, and remained a benefactor of the church.

Relations with the church had not always been easy. Archbishop of Canterbury Anselm supported Henry’s bid for the throne in 1100. Almost immediately he quarrelled with Henry when the king asked him to do homage and to receive his archbishopric from his hands. After various ineffective appeals to Rome, Anselm went into exile. A compromise was finally arranged in 1107, when it was agreed that the king would surrender the appointment of bishops in return for an agreement that he should supervise the election of the archbishop and take homage for the ‘temporalities’ (land used by the church). It was said that the compromise cost the king “a little, perhaps, of his royal dignity, but nothing of his power to enthrone anyone he pleased.”

Henry continued and extended the administrative work of his father. His frequent absences from England prompted the development of a system that could operate effectively in his absence. The exchequer was developed as a department of government dealing with royal revenues, and the first record of the sheriffs’ regular accounting at the exchequer, or Pipe Roll, to survive is that of 112930. Justices with wide-ranging commissions were sent out into the shires to reinforce local administration and to inquire into crown pleas, royal revenues, and other matters of interest and profit for the king. Henry’s government was highly efficient, but it was also harsh and demanding.

During the last 15 years of his reign the succession was a major issue. William, Henry’s only legitimate son, was drowned in 1120, leaving Henry’s daughter Matilda, wife of the German emperor Henry V, as heir. When Henry V died in 1125, Matilda returned to England. Henry I persuaded his barons to swear an oath in her support but did not consult them over her second marriage to Geoffrey of Anjou, who at 14 was 11 years her junior. Within a year Geoffrey repudiated Matilda, but during a temporary reconciliation, Matilda and Geoffrey had three children.

Henry was a skilled politician, adept at using the levers of patronage. There was tension between the established nobility and the “new men” raised to high office by the king, but Henry maintained control with great effect and distributed favours evenhandedly. In England his rule, particularly when seen in retrospect, was characterized by peace, order, and justice. He died, probably of a heart attack, on December 1, 1135.

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