United Kingdom, History of the

United Kingdom, History of the, is part of the long story of all the peoples who have at one time or another lived in the lands that make up present-day England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Several names are used to describe the area of the United Kingdom. The term United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland refers to England, Scotland, and Wales, together with Northern Ireland. The name Britain, or Great Britain, and the word British properly belong only to the political unit formed in 1707 by England, Scotland, and Wales—the united kingdom of Great Britain. From 1801 to 1921, the United Kingdom also included the whole of Ireland, not just the northern part. Many people, however, use the term Britain as an informal name for the United Kingdom.

Over the centuries, the United Kingdom has developed its civilization from a blend of different cultures. Prehistoric peoples, Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans have all helped to shape British history.

From the 1500’s onward, what is now the United Kingdom made rapid economic, cultural, political, and social progress and became a nation of world importance. The British people developed democratic parliamentary government and pioneered the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution.

From 1500 to 1900, the United Kingdom developed the largest and most influential overseas empire in history. British civilization, laws, and culture shaped North America, including Canada; Australia; India; New Zealand; the Caribbean; much of South Asia and Southeast Asia; and all the countries that now form the Commonwealth of Nations. In the 1900’s, the United Kingdom gave up most of its empire and helped many countries achieve political independence. Even though the United Kingdom’s world influence has declined, the United Kingdom still ranked among the world’s leading industrial nations in the early 2000’s. The Commonwealth lives on as a group of nations linked by the legacies of British law and culture.

Prehistoric Britain

The story of human settlement in Britain goes back hundreds of thousands of years. Knowledge of this prehistoric period depends on fossils, tools, monuments, and other remains that archaeologists have discovered and studied.

The earliest times.

A million years ago, the whole of northwestern Europe, including Britain, was in the grip of the last Ice Age. During this period, a land bridge joined Britain to Europe. Ice sheets covered vast regions of land.

The ice advanced and retreated several times. During each glaciation (advance of the ice), bitterly cold weather made Britain suitable for only the hardiest animals, such as cave lions, mammoths, reindeer, woolly rhinoceroses, and wolves. But during the interglacials (periods when the ice retreated), the climate warmed. Birch, pine, and alder trees flourished amid open grasslands and swamps. In these warmer periods, herds of aurochs (wild oxen), bison, deer, elephants, and hippopotamuses roamed the country. Bears, hyenas, and lions preyed on them.

The Paleolithic Period.

Archaeologists think that the earliest hominins (the group including modern humans, their close relatives, and their ancestors) may have entered Britain overland from Europe more than half a million years ago. These hominins belonged to the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) Period, which began over 2 million years ago and lasted until about 8000 B.C. They used stone tools and may have discovered how to control fire. They traveled as hunters, following herds of migrating wild animals.

As the Paleolithic Period progressed, hominins learned to use stone tools. These tools included axes, blades, scrapers, and pointed weapons made by preparing the tool on a core of flint (hard rock).

One site, Swanscombe, in Kent, contained the earliest human fossil found in Britain, the skull of a young female unearthed in parts in 1935 and 1936 and in 1955. The Swanscombe skull, as this relic is called, dates from between 300,000 and 225,000 years ago. See Swanscombe fossil.

Archaeologists have found stone tools from more than 300,000 years ago at a site at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. At Clacton, archaeologists also discovered a spearhead made of yew, one of the oldest wooden tools ever found. Scientists have found hand axes at other sites.

About 75,000 years ago, the last of the severe glaciations began. For much of the Paleolithic Period, no human beings inhabited Britain. Those who did venture there during short mild spells sometimes found shelter in caves. They included the earliest physically modern human beings, whom scientists call Homo sapiens sapiens.

Among the most important discoveries of the late Paleolithic Period is the Paviland Man—a skeleton covered in red ocher (earth mixture used as a dye). Archaeologists discovered the skeleton in Paviland Cave, on the coast of Gower Peninsula in southern Wales, in 1823. Scientists originally believed that it was the skeleton of a young woman. They later discovered that it is the remains of a young man who died more than 25,000 years ago. His body had been smeared with red ocher, perhaps as part of a burial ritual.

About 11,500 years ago, the last Ice Age began to end, and the climate started to improve. People still lived in caves and hunted for food. Archaeologists in Cheddar in Somerset and Creswell Crags in Derbyshire have found many interesting relics from around this period. These finds include the only surviving works of Paleolithic art from the area. One relic from Creswell Crags is a puzzling picture of a man engraved on a piece of bone. Some people think the figure resembles a masked male dancer. Another piece of bone from Creswell Crags is engraved with a horse’s head.

The Mesolithic Period.

The Stone Age hunters and gatherers who lived in Britain after the Ice Age, from about 10,000 years ago through the next several thousand years, are called Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) people. Over much of this period, the improving climate changed the environment. As the climate gradually warmed, forests of birch trees grew up, followed by pines, and finally by forests of mainly oak, hazel, linden, and elm. Lions, elephants, mammoths, and hippopotamuses had become extinct in Britain. Beavers, elks, foxes, pigs, pine martens (fur-covered mammals that look like an oversized weasels), polecats, red deer, and hares were common. Britain’s rivers teemed with fish.

Britain attracted new settlers during this period. The sea level was lower than today because so much water was still frozen in glaciers. Small groups from what are now Scandinavia and Germany could walk across land to northern Britain. Mesolithic people hunted and fished, and they developed a culture more advanced than that of the Paleolithic Period. Some of their most famous remains were found at Star Carr, North Yorkshire. Archaeologists believe this was the site of a seasonal hunting camp or perhaps a place where people gathered for ceremonies during part of the year. They have found the remains of many tools and animal bones, especially deer, that date back to between 10,700 and 10,200 years ago.

Over many centuries, slowly rising temperatures caused the ice sheets to melt and raised the level of the sea. Britain lost its land link with the rest of Europe after the formation of the English Channel and the North Sea about 8,500 years ago.

Mesolithic people made such tools as axes and mattocks, large tools with a flat blade, used for loosening soil and cutting roots. The toolmakers of this time made tools by gluing small, finely worked pieces of flint called microliths onto antler, bone, or wood with tree resin. Fishing crews used harpoons made in this manner. The people of this time cleared areas of forest by setting fire to it. Some experts think they cleared these areas to create meadows, which would attract deer and other animals that the people hunted. Mesolithic hunters were the first to tame the dog.

The Neolithic Period.

About 6,000 years ago, or about 4000 B.C., knowledge of agriculture was brought from the mainland of western Europe to Britain. Archaeologists believe that some small family groups may have traveled to Britain carrying seeds and bringing livestock animals. People from Britain may also have traveled to the continent, where they learned about agriculture, and then brought that knowledge back to Britain. This development marks a new era in British history, known as the Neolithic (New Stone Age) Period. Neolithic people cleared large areas of woodland and made fields for planting crops and farming livestock. They mined flint at such places as Grimes Graves, in Norfolk, and they produced superior stone axes. They imported items of jade from Europe. They also made and traded Britain’s earliest pottery.

The Neolithic people were probably the first in Britain to put up structures of stone and wood. They also built the first roads, which consisted of wooden trackways across marshy areas, such as the Somerset Levels. They built vast enclosed areas called causewayed camps and henges surrounded by ditches. These enclosures may have served as meeting places or markets.

Neolithic people probably lived in isolated farms or small settlements. Some Neolithic people buried their dead in long barrows (mounds) made of earth (see Barrow). Later, around 3000 B.C., some used chambered tombs built of stone to bury their dead. These tombs belong to a class of huge monuments of stone called megaliths. Megalithic monuments also include vast circles of standing stones. The best known of these, Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, was probably begun about 2800 B.C. and completed by Bronze Age builders. Many experts believe Stonehenge shows that Neolithic and Bronze Age people had an advanced knowledge of mathematics and astronomy. See Megalithic monuments; Stonehenge.

The Bronze Age.

Between 3000 B.C. and 2500 B.C., people began using metal in Britain. Knowledge of metalworking spread from Spain and Portugal to Ireland and then to Britain. It also came from the Rhineland, an area around the Rhine River in what is now western Germany, and from what is now the Netherlands. The first metals used were copper and gold. At nearly the same time, distinctive beaker-shaped pottery vessels appeared in Britain. The beakers were often buried with the dead.

Scholars once thought that large numbers of immigrants, whom they called the Beaker Folk, brought metalworking and the new beaker pottery to Britain. But archaeologists have found no evidence of large migrations, and many now believe that small groups or individual traders and craftworkers probably spread the new skills and ideas.

Many people in the centuries around 2000 B.C. were farmers. They bred cattle and probably tamed horses. They also traded gold and copper ornaments and made improved arrowheads of flint or copper, as well as copper daggers and axes. They lived in isolated houses on individual farms or small clusters. They usually buried their dead individually under round barrows.

People started using bronze (copper hardened with tin) about 2000 B.C. Bronze tools and weapons gradually replaced those of flint and copper. Ornaments of gold and bronze became important luxury goods. Southern Britain played a major part in the trade of these items between Europe and Ireland, which was famous for bronze production. Early Bronze Age people buried their dead in round barrows with many luxury goods. Some later Bronze Age people cremated (burned) their corpses and placed the ashes in pottery urns. By about 1400 B.C., the early Britons had completed Stonehenge and had built a larger monument at Avebury, in Wiltshire. They also built stone circles in many other places.

Many experts think that the use of the wheel began in Britain during this period. Some scholars believe that certain classes of wealthy people formed an aristocracy, a government in which the privileged upper class ruled. The people of the late Bronze Age made and used stabbing swords and shields of wood, leather, and bronze.

The Iron Age.

Most historians believe that the Celtic language began to spread to Britain during the Iron Age as a result of trade with Europe. By about 50 B.C., Celtic had almost entirely replaced Britain’s earlier language. The various groups who spoke Celtic are known as (usually pronounced Celts << kehlts >> ). Celtic became the ancestor of the present-day languages Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, Manx, and Cornish.

Soon after 700 B.C., the use of iron was introduced into Britain. Metalworkers learned to make iron tools and weapons of high technical quality. By about the 200’s B.C., more advanced metalworking styles and techniques were brought from the mainland of Europe and used to make tools, weapons, shields, and artistic personal ornaments.

The peoples of this time were warlike. Warrior chiefs ruled their communities. The warriors in Britain began to use chariots, and riding on horseback became more widespread. People built forts on hilltops and protected them with ditches and wide banks of earth called ramparts. They built wooden houses and cleared forests for cattle farming. Some villages, such as one at Glastonbury, Somerset, were built in shallow lakes. See Hill forts.

Some time after 100 B.C., contact with continental Europe seems to have grown stronger. Groups of Celtic-speaking people known as the Belgae probably arrived in southern Britain from Gaul (France). People in Britain began to cast metal coins and make pottery on potter’s wheels, a skill that spread from western Europe. They wore woolen clothing, which they dyed bright colors. They exported enslaved people, dogs, iron, and tin to Gaul and other Mediterranean countries. They built farms and large settlements that developed into Britain’s first towns

Roman Britain (50’s B.C.-A.D. 400’s)

The recorded history of the United Kingdom began when the Romans invaded Britain. Britain became the northernmost province of the vast Roman Empire, which covered half of Europe at its height.

Caesar’s expeditions.

In 55 B.C., the great Roman general Julius Caesar sailed across the English Channel from Gaul. He landed in present-day Kent with a small force to explore Britain. He returned the next year with an invading army and captured the stronghold of the main British military leader, which was probably at what is now Wheathampstead, near St. Albans, Hertfordshire. But unrest in Gaul forced him to withdraw from Britain. Caesar believed that the Britons, in particular the influential Celtic learned class called the Druids, had helped the Gauls fight the Romans. Caesar’s chief aim in invading Britain was to stop the Britons from aiding the Gauls. He also knew that further conquests would boost his popularity in Rome. Caesar’s account of his invasion of Britain marked the earliest direct written record of Britain’s history. See Gaul .

At the time Caesar landed, Britain, which the Romans called Britannia, consisted of tribal communities ruled by kings or queens. The country’s importance as a trading center was already well known but probably grew after Caesar’s expeditions.

The expansion of Roman control.

The Romans did not invade Britain again until nearly 100 years after Caesar’s two expeditions. In A.D. 43, the Roman emperor Claudius ordered Roman armies to invade Britannia. At the Battle of the Medway, the Romans defeated the tribes of southeastern Britain led by Caratacus. Claudius himself marched in triumph into Colchester, where many tribal chiefs submitted to his rule. The Romans then advanced northward and westward from London, building roads and establishing forts.

Caratacus fled to the southern part of present-day Wales. There, he led other tribes in their resistance to the Romans. In A.D. 51, he was defeated and captured (see Caratacus). By A.D. 61, the Romans controlled the country as far north and west as the Humber and Severn rivers. In that year, Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman governor of Britannia, defeated a rebellion led by Boudicca (sometimes spelled Boadicea), queen of the Iceni, who lived in the area later known as East Anglia (see Boudicca).

The Romans then occupied the southern part of the island and made it a province of Rome for more than 350 years. Roman governors ruled the province, and Roman armies and fleets defended it. The Romans built towns from which they administered occupied areas. London became the capital. Canterbury, Leicester, St. Albans, Winchester, and other towns became centers of regional Roman government. Colchester, Gloucester, Lincoln, and York developed as settlements for retired Roman soldiers.

Between A.D. 71 and 79, the Romans subdued western Britain. Gnaeus Julius Agricola, appointed governor in 78, advanced northward along the east and west coasts of Scotland, and as far as the Firths of Clyde and Forth, in southwestern Scotland. During the A.D. 80’s, the Romans completed the conquest of the southern part of the island, including present-day England and Wales.

The Romans built camps and forts throughout the land and constructed roads to connect the camps. The most famous road, which became known as Watling Street, ran from Richborough, near Dover, to Chester and passed through the settlements that became Canterbury and London.

The Romans also built walls and forts across northern England to protect the province from the warlike peoples of Scotland. The most famous of the walls was Hadrian’s Wall, named after the Emperor Hadrian. It was built in the A.D. 120’s and extended from Solway Firth to the mouth of the River Tyne. Remains of the wall and the fortified towers along it still exist. In some places, the ruins of the wall are still 5 to 6 feet (1.5 to 1.8 meters) high and wide enough to walk on (see Hadrian’s Wall). In the early A.D. 140’s, during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius, Roman forces built a second defensive wall from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde, but they could not defend it against attacks and eventually abandoned it. Several sections of the wall and the deep ditch that ran along the northern side of it still remain.

Roman rule.

Southern Britain prospered under the Romans. The Roman way of life spread from the towns to the countryside. The Romans built most towns to a standardized pattern of straight, parallel main streets that crossed at right angles. A forum (marketplace) served as the center of each town. Shops and such public buildings as the basilica (public hall), baths, law courts, and temples surrounded the forum. The streets were paved and had drainage systems, and fresh water was piped to many buildings. Some towns had a theater for animal fights, gladiator shows, and plays. Houses were built of wood or narrow bricks and had tiled roofs. In some houses, hot air from a furnace was conducted through brick pipes under the floor to provide heat.

Many Romans and wealthy Romanized Britons lived in country villas. Villas were long, single-story farmhouses surrounded by estates with huts for enslaved people and peasants. Archaeologists have uncovered the foundations of numerous Roman villas in Britain. A villa usually had at least 6 to 10 rooms, and sometimes more. Rooms were generally arranged in a row along a covered or enclosed porch. Sometimes the rooms lay along three sides of a central courtyard. Many villas had baths. The main rooms had floors decorated in mosaic, which fitted together small pieces of stone or glass to form a design. Walls were decorated with frescoes (wallpaintings created on fresh plaster).

In the temples, priests offered sacrifices to such Roman gods and goddesses as Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. Priests also encouraged people to worship Roman emperors as gods. The Romans promoted emperor-worship in all their provinces as a means of gaining loyalty from conquered peoples. Some Romans, particularly soldiers, worshiped Middle Eastern gods. In the early 1950’s, archaeologists in London uncovered the remains of a temple to the Persian god Mithra. Roman soldiers and traders also brought Christianity, and in the A.D. 300’s, the Christian Church was established in Britain. Archaeologists have found a number of items bearing Christian symbols and dating from the A.D. 300’s in various places in England. In addition, archaeologists discovered an early Christian chapel in a Roman villa in Kent.

The Romans never conquered northern Britain and sent no expeditions to Hibernia (Ireland). Throughout Roman times, the mountainous districts of Cambria (now part of Wales) and the territory between Hadrian’s Wall and the River Humber remained turbulent. The Romans controlled these areas using forts and strategic roads.

The departure of the Romans.

Roman rule in Britain ended when the Roman Empire declined in the A.D. 300’s and 400’s. In 367, several different tribes from outside Roman Briton coordinated their efforts to attack Britain from the north, west, and southeast. The attackers caused great chaos and destruction before the Romans regained control in 368 and 369. About 400, the Romans abandoned Hadrian’s Wall and the nearby forts in the region of Cambria, which had helped defend the northern border.

As early as the 200’s, massive migrations of such peoples as the Goths, Huns, and Vandals had put increasing pressure on the frontiers of Rome’s other European provinces. These attacks began in eastern Europe, but eventually extended all the way to Spain. The last of the Roman soldiers in Britain left in the early 400’s to help defend the struggling empire against these invaders. In 410, people in the towns of Britain appealed to Rome for protection. But the Romans replied that Britain had to see to its own defense. Rome itself was being attacked by Goths.

With the Romans gone, the Britons could not protect themselves against invasion by people from Scotland called Picts and people from Ireland called Scots. But the greatest danger came from seafaring Germanic tribes, especially the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. These tribes first raided the coast. In the mid-400’s, they began to establish permanent settlements. The Jutes were probably the first to land. They settled in southeastern England, in what is now the county of Kent, and in south-central England on the Isle of Wight and in what is now southern Hampshire. The Angles and Saxons followed the Jutes and set up kingdoms throughout southern and eastern England. The name England comes from the Anglo-Saxon words meaning Angle folk or land of the Angles.

In the 300’s, the Britons appointed, as a protective measure, an official called the Count of the Saxon Shore. This person supervised the defense of the coast at the southeastern corner of England, which was protected by a series of forts from the Solent Channel, off the south coast, to the Wash Bay, on the east coast.

The Anglo-Saxons destroyed most aspects of Roman culture wherever they settled. As a result, the Roman occupation had few lasting effects on Britain, except for good roads and the continued existence of some Roman towns, such as London, in the southern part of the country and the survival of the Christian Church in Wales and Cornwall. See Anglo-Saxons.

The early Middle Ages (400’s-1000’s)

People formerly used the name the Dark Ages for the early Middle Ages, the period between the departure of the Romans in the 400’s and the invasion of the Normans in 1066. They called the period “dark” partly because of a supposed lack of learning then.

Few records have survived from this period. Much of what historians know comes from accounts written down many centuries later, after they were handed down through the generations by word of mouth. There was probably a King Arthur, the legendary king of medieval Britain, and he probably led a kingdom of the Britons. But historians no longer believe that there was a Round Table and body of knights (see Arthur, King).

Although records from this time are rare, archaeologists have found inscriptions on stone monuments and collections of coins. From these discoveries, historians have learned which rulers of the period had the power to issue coins with their heads shown on them. Archaeologists use these discoveries to learn about the patterns of settlers’ trade movements and settlement and migration patterns.

During this period, the English nation began to emerge, with a language based on Germanic languages rather than Celtic ones. This nation soon began to produce its own art and literature.

The Anglo-Saxon settlement.

The leaders of the Romanized Britons operated the Roman system of local government until about 446, when they made a final, failed appeal to Rome for protection from Anglo-Saxon raiders. From then on, power fell more and more into the hands of local chiefs. From time to time, some of the local chiefs established a lordship over others. These chiefs are known as overlords.

The Anglo-Saxon raids continued. These raids were part of a general migration of Germanic tribes in search of new land for their increasing population. Several early medieval histories describe how the Anglo-Saxon raiders eventually began to settle in England. Historians today believe that these accounts combine fact with legends. Several early histories say that the Anglo-Saxon settlement began in 449, when the overlord Vortigern, who was king of Kent, invited two Jutish chiefs to help him defend his lands against invading tribes. These chiefs, named Hengist and Horsa, later rebelled against Vortigern. Horsa died in battle, but Hengist and his son eventually conquered Kent. See Hengist and Horsa.

The Anglo-Saxon and Jutish settlers came from present-day Denmark and northern Germany. By about 550, the Jutes ruled Kent, the Isle of Wight, and Hampshire. The Saxons settled around the River Thames. They advanced westward to the Bristol Channel by 577. The Angles occupied the central part of southern England and the northern and eastern coasts. They reached the Irish Sea about 613. By then, almost all of present-day England was under Anglo-Saxon rule.

The Anglo-Saxon settlers established kingdoms in the southern, eastern, and central parts of Britain. Those Britons who remained in these areas gradually lost their separate identity and language. Independent kingdoms ruled by descendants of the ancient Britons were confined to the western and northern parts of the island, in what eventually became Wales, Cornwall, and part of Scotland. Some Britons also took refuge across the English Channel in Brittany, in present-day northwestern France. In the 500’s and 600’s, the Angles made gains in what is now southeastern Scotland. They also captured the land along what is now the southwestern border of Scotland, which lay between the British kingdom of Strathclyde and what later became Wales. In the 700’s, Offa, king of Mercia, built a defensive dike that defined the English boundary with the Welsh (see Offa’s Dyke). For a fuller account of the early Middle Ages in Scotland, see Scotland, History of.

Anglo-Saxon rule.

The Angles and Saxons soon became the most powerful tribes in England. Each tribe divided into separate nations. The Saxons, who occupied much of southern England, split into East Saxons, Middle Saxons, South Saxons, and West Saxons. The Angles lived mainly in northern, central, and eastern England. Their nations were called Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria.

In time, the tribal nations developed into seven main kingdoms called the Heptarchy. These kingdoms were (1) East Anglia, (2) Essex, (3) Kent, (4) Mercia, (5) Northumbria, (6) Sussex, and (7) Wessex. By the early 600’s, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex dominated the other four kingdoms. In the 700’s, Mercia formed important commercial and diplomatic links with Europe.

The earliest Anglo-Saxon kings were military leaders who ruled with the aid of warrior companions known as gesith. The kings sometimes granted these warriors the right to the crops and earnings from certain lands to support them. After the gesith died, the rights to the land returned to the king. By the 800’s, the king’s companions and advisers started to be called thanes (also spelled thegns). The kings had begun to grant thanes hereditary rights over land, so land rights passed to a thane’s descendants after he died. The kings also made thanes overlords of villages. Peasants had to pay their thane part of their crops or do labor service (work) for the thane. See Thane.

During the 800’s, the English king began to rule with the aid of a witenagemot, which was the meeting of the witan (wise men) of a kingdom. This council included members of the nobility and clergy. The witan advised the king and could choose a new king in a disputed succession. The council also acted as the highest court of law. See Witenagemot.

The Anglo-Saxon peoples spoke languages belonging to the Germanic group of languages. The speech of the Anglo-Saxons predominated in England and formed the basis from which the English language developed.

Religion and early literature.

Christianity had died out in most of England as a result of the Germanic invasions. The Germanic invaders were not Christians. Instead, they worshiped nature gods. In 597, Augustine, a priest from Rome, traveled from France to Kent and converted Kent’s King Ethelbert, also spelled Aethelbehrt, to Christianity. Augustine built a monastery near Canterbury, which eventually became the main religious center in England (see Augustine of Canterbury, Saint). Augustine was later made a saint. During the next 50 years, monks in contact with Rome spread Christianity in East Anglia, Sussex, and Wessex. In 563, the Irish monk Saint Columba had established a monastery on the Scottish island of Iona. Monks from Iona converted the northern Picts in Scotland. In about 635, Saint Aidan and other Irish monks from Iona founded a monastery at Lindisfarne (Holy Island), in Northumbria (see Lindisfarne).

The Christians who survived the Germanic invasions in places like Wales and Cornwall and the Christians converted by Irish missionaries are known as Celtic Christians. Some of their practices differed from those of the Christians converted by Roman Catholic monks, such as Saint Augustine. For example, the two groups had different ideas about the role of bishops and the way to calculate the date of Easter. At a conference called the Synod of Whitby in about 664, the king of Northumbria switched to practices favored by the popes in Rome. The other Celtic churches in Britain soon followed.

Poetry was the earliest form of Anglo-Saxon literature. Caedmon, a poet of the 600’s, composed many religious poems. But only one of Caedmon’s poems, his Hymn, has survived. The most important epic of the period is Beowulf, probably composed in the 700’s. It describes the struggles of a warrior-king to protect his people against dragons and monsters. The greatest prose work from this period is the Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), written by Saint Bede. Bede was a monk who studied at the monastery of Jarrow (see Bede, Saint). Monasteries were centers of learning. In the 800’s, monks began to write what has become known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a yearly record of events. This record was kept until the mid-1100’s.

Raiders from Scandinavia

called Vikings first raided the Wessex coast in 789. They raided the Hebrides Islands, a group of Scottish islands that lie northwest of the country’s mainland, in 794 and Ireland in the next year. Their raids became more frequent in the 800’s and 900’s. They attacked Iona, Jarrow, Lindisfarne, and other rich monasteries. They plundered and burned villages, took captives as slaves, and left survivors to starve. In 851, Danish Vikings began to remain in England year-round instead of returning home each winter after a season of raiding. By 870, they had conquered every English kingdom except Wessex.

Alfred the Great, the king of Wessex, resisted the Viking attacks. In 878 and 886, he won important victories over the Danes and then made treaties with them. By the terms of the treaty of 878, the defeated Danish leader and his most important followers accepted Christianity. The Danes also agreed to live in an area north of a line drawn from the River Thames to Chester. The area from there north to about the River Tees and the Solway Firth came to be called the Danelaw (see Danelaw).

Danish Vikings established trade between England and countries beyond the North Sea. York was a leading Viking town and trading center. The towns of Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, and Stamford served as local Danish defensive centers and were known as the Five Boroughs.

Alfred was an effective ruler who expanded his kingdom and united it militarily and administratively. He supported Christianity, encouraged education, and issued a code of laws. He also built a fleet of ships, established fortified towns, and reorganized the army to protect his kingdom from the Danes. See Alfred the Great.

Among Alfred’s descendants were two more outstanding kings. Athelstan, who ruled from 924 to 939, was acknowledged as overlord by the Danes and by some of the rulers in what are now Scotland and Wales. Edgar the Peaceful, who reigned from 959 to 975, reformed the laws and coinage and founded religious institutions.

By 954, Wessex had conquered the Danelaw. But new Danish raiders arrived in the later 900’s. King Ethelred II tried to buy them off with tribute money and paid for mercenaries to help him fight with a land tax later known as the Danegeld (see Danegeld). But by 1013, the Danes had conquered most of England. In 1016, Canute, king of Denmark and Norway, also became king of England. After Canute’s death in 1035, his empire collapsed. In 1042, Ethelred’s son Edward became king.

The Normans.

King Edward, known as the Confessor because of his interest in religious matters, ruled from 1042 to 1066. He had no son, and so a struggle for power developed. An English noble, Earl Godwine, had become powerful under Canute. Godwine and his sons remained the most powerful lords in England during most of Edward’s reign. Edward built the first church on the site of what is now Westminster Abbey in London. See Edward the Confessor .

When Edward the Confessor died, Godwine’s son Harold became King Harold II with the witan’s support. William, Duke of Normandy, immediately challenged Harold’s right to become king. The Normans were a people descended from Vikings who had settled around the River Seine in present-day France. They had adopted Christianity and the French language and had become powerful. William claimed the English throne because he was distantly related to Edward, and because he said that Edward had promised him the throne. William also claimed that Harold had once sworn to support William’s claim. But Edward’s death left power with Godwine’s family, so Harold II came to the throne. See Harold II.

The High Middle Ages (1000’s-1200’s)

The Norman Conquest.

In September 1066, Tostig, Harold’s brother, together with King Harald Hardrada of Norway, invaded northern England. Harold II defeated them at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. But three days after Harold II won that battle, William landed with his forces in East Sussex. Harold rushed south to confront them. William’s knights killed Harold and defeated his forces in the historic Battle of Hastings on Oct. 14, 1066.

William I was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey in London on Christmas Day, 1066. William saw England as an extension of his French domains. He exercised strict, systematic control over his conquests. William established a strong central government in England. He formed an advisory council, the curia regis, to help him govern (see Curia regis ). He appointed Norman nobles to the council and to other high positions. He raised taxes and redistributed land, granting most of it to barons (noblemen). See William I, the Conqueror.

William faced serious resistance in his early years as king. The people of northern England, helped by a Danish force, revolted in 1069. William crushed the uprising mercilessly. Historians later wrote stories about Hereward the Wake, a heroic Saxon rebel who resisted the Normans in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire. Hereward was defeated in 1071. By 1075, William eliminated the remaining resistance to his rule.

Norman society.

William’s barons had to perform certain services in return for their land. The barons and bishops served as members of William’s council, which replaced the Anglo-Saxon witenagemot. The barons also had military obligations to serve with a stated number of knights (mounted soldiers) for William.

Most land in England was divided into a type of estate called a manor. In the central and southern Lowlands, manors consisted of a block of land around a village or settlement. In the northern or western Highlands, people lived in scattered farms and dwellings and were ruggedly independent. Each lord could have authority over many manors. Usually, a manor consisted of land managed directly by the lord, called the demesne, and land held by the tenants. Some tenants were free. They paid the lord rent in goods or services, but could leave the manor if they wished. Others, called villeins or serfs, were semifree. They were bound to the land and could not move away without permission from the lord. In addition to rents for their own plots of land, villeins had to work on the lord’s demesne. They were also subject to the lord’s law court. There were also some peasants who owned all or part of the land they farmed.

Norman achievements.

The Normans replaced the wooden churches built by the Saxons with many more stone churches, such as St. Bartholomew-the-Great in London. William I began the construction of the Tower of London soon after he conquered England. Norman churches and castles had thick walls, huge columns, and round arches. An early type of Norman castle was a motte and bailey. This type of castle consisted of a motte (natural or artificial mound), which was often surmounted by a wooden or stone tower called a keep. A palisade (wooden wall) circled the top of the motte. Usually one or more fortified courtyards called baileys lay at the foot of the motte. A palisade often surrounded each bailey. Deep ditches called moats also surrounded the motte and each bailey. The Normans built nearly 100 castles and most of the 19 great cathedrals of medieval England during William’s reign.

Shortly before his death in 1087, William ordered a survey to determine how much land and other property there was in England. He noted who held the land and what taxes and services the landholders owed the king for their property. The record of William’s survey soon became known as the (pronounced Domesday Book << DOOMZ day >> ). Because judges often used the record to make decisions in property and tax cases, people compared it to the so-called Day of Doom, when legend said that all people would be called to judgment. The Domesday Book is a rich source of information about medieval England. See Domesday Book .

Although most Anglo-Saxons became serfs under the Normans, they kept their language and many of their customs. Through the years, the differences between the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans gradually decreased. For example, the Normans spoke French at first. But eventually, their language blended with that of the Anglo-Saxons. In time, the Normans and Anglo-Saxons became a united people. The modern English language developed from their blended languages. See English language (The development of English).

Struggles for power.

During the late 1000’s and early 1100’s, there was much tension in England between the kings and the nobles. The kings tried to ensure that they had the military might to keep out rivals and the right to give justice to their subjects in all great causes. Similar disputes occurred in most other European nations. But in England, unlike in the other countries, the kings at first won the struggle.

In 1088, William II, son of William the Conqueror, put down a revolt of Norman barons. He maintained his power for another decade but was killed in mysterious circumstances while out hunting in 1100. Henry I, William II’s brother, became king in 1100. He was also determined to keep the nobles in check and, in fact, strengthened the king’s control over the country. But civil war broke out after Stephen, William the Conqueror’s grandson, became king in 1135. Henry’s daughter, Matilda, also claimed the throne. Matilda and Stephen fought from 1138 to 1148, when Matilda sailed to France. In 1153, Stephen, who was childless, promised to make her son Henry his heir. But the long years of civil war caused royal justice and authority to weaken.

Henry II

was the first Plantagenet king. His father was the French count Geoffrey of Anjou, whose emblem is said to have been a sprig of broom. The French for broom plant was plante genet, which was the root of the name Plantagenet. Henry II reigned from 1154 to 1189. He regained the power that Henry I had held, and he increased it.

Henry II kept the Norman tradition of a powerful king. But he combined a strong kingship with the Anglo-Saxon system of local rule, and he expanded the system of jury trials. Under the Anglo-Saxons, each local court had decided cases mainly on the basis of local laws and customs and earlier cases. Henry sent judges to all parts of England to administer the same laws throughout the land. The judges’ decisions became the basis for the English system of common law—that is, law that applied equally anywhere in England. Today, English common law is the basis of the legal system in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and many other countries.

Henry II wanted to control the church in England. This led to a bitter and famous conflict between Henry and Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury. The quarrel ended when four of Henry’s knights killed Becket in 1170 while he prayed in his cathedral (see Becket, Saint Thomas). The people were so angered by the murder that Henry was forced to grant many special rights to religious leaders. See Henry II.

Magna Carta.

Henry II’s son Richard I, who was called Richard the Lion-Hearted, reigned from 1189 to 1199. But he spent only six months of his reign in England. Richard went to the Holy Land, areas of religious importance in what is now the Middle East and Asia Minor, to fight in the Third Crusade. The Crusades were Christian military expeditions to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims. Richard also fought a war with France. He forced the people to pay high taxes to support his armies.

During his absence, Richard left the government in the care of ministers, but his brother John plotted to gain power. The legendary outlaw Robin Hood supposedly fought against John’s officers. John became king after Richard’s death in 1199 and reigned from 1199 to 1216. He was a good administrator, but he was suspicious and sometimes cruel. He made enemies among the barons and religious leaders, lost much of the land England held in France, and quarreled with Pope Innocent III. In an attempt to reduce John’s power, a group of barons and church leaders demanded reform and rebelled. They forced John to agree to a settlement in 1215 that became known as Magna Carta (Great Charter). It placed the king under English law and limited his power. Over the centuries that followed, Magna Carta came to protect the liberties of individuals and groups against the king and central government. See Magna Carta.

Henry III, John’s eldest son, reigned from 1216 to 1272 but achieved little success, as his father had. An English statesman and soldier, Simon de Montfort, led the barons in a rebellion against the king. This rebellion, called the Barons’ War, resulted in de Montfort’s defeat and death at the Battle of Evesham in 1265.

The beginnings of Parliament.

Henry III’s heir, Edward, crushed the rebellious barons. In 1272, he succeeded Henry as King Edward I. Like earlier kings, Edward called meetings of leading nobles and church leaders to discuss government problems. But Edward enlarged the meetings to include knights from the shires, less important church leaders, and representatives of the towns. In 1297, Edward agreed not to collect certain taxes without the consent of that group of advisers, by then called Parliament. He also strengthened the royal court system. See Edward I.

Edward I brought Wales under English control. His army conquered the Welsh in 1283 after killing their leader, the Prince of Wales, late in 1282. In 1284, Edward issued the Statute of Rhuddlan, which reorganized Welsh lands and placed them under the control of the king and English nobles. In 1301, Edward gave the title Prince of Wales to his son, who had been born in Caernarfon, Wales, and who later became Edward II. Since then, nearly all male heirs to the throne have received that title.

Edward I also tried to conquer Scotland. In 1296, he invaded the country and proclaimed himself king of Scotland. The Scots rebelled and defeated Edward’s son, Edward II, in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, assuring Scotland’s independence for more than 300 years.

England became an important center of learning during the 1200’s. Oxford and Cambridge universities received royal charters, and students from many countries flocked to them. During the 1200’s, England also produced two of the greatest thinkers of the Middle Ages, Roger Bacon and John Duns Scotus.

The late Middle Ages (1300’s-1400’s)

The late Middle Ages opened with plague and war, but became a time of growing towns, changing economic and social conditions, and the blossoming of literature and education. By the 1300’s, the manorial way of life had begun to decline. This decline was speeded by the Black Death, an outbreak of plague that spread from central Asia across Europe. It killed as much as one-third of the population in 1348 and 1349.

The significance of barons and knights as warriors declined. Increasingly, lords and knights paid scutage (taxes) to the lord instead of serving in person whenever he went to war. Expanding trade brought growth and prosperity to towns. Fresh, challenging ideas spread from Italy to England and other parts of Europe. The new ideas coincided with the growth of education and the invention in Europe of printing.

The decline of manors.

The effects of the Black Death hastened changes in rural society. As early as the 1100’s, some manor owners had found it convenient to accept money as rent from their tenants instead of labor service. With the money, the lord could hire laborers. The change from paying a lord through labor services to payment in money was called commutation.

During the 1300’s, lords of the manor found that a shortage of hired laborers after the Black Death forced them to pay higher wages. The rents paid by many manorial tenants were fixed and therefore remained unchanged. But with fewer tenants, the lords collected less than in the past. Many tenants were also able to move around to other manors and negotiate for cheaper rents. Some lords found it unprofitable to continue to farm their land, and they leased the land to farmers who became increasingly wealthy. Other lords turned their land over to sheep farming, which required less labor than crop growing.

Some lords tried to prevent hired laborers from getting higher wages. They also attempted to enforce high pre-plague rent levels and old labor service obligations. In 1351, Parliament passed a Statute of Labourers, which banned wage increases for agricultural workers. These actions aroused resentment. Together with a series of high taxes, they helped produce an uprising in 1381 known as Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, or the Peasants’ Revolt. See Wat Tyler’s Rebellion.

The Hundred Years’ War.

The years from 1337 to 1453 were marked by long periods of fighting, which brought about important changes in warfare. Military campaigns became longer, and kings needed soldiers to fight longer than the period of manorial obligation. Soldiers with longbows proved more powerful on the battlefield than heavily armed knights. Kings preferred to take money—instead of military service—from tenants. With the money, they hired professional soldiers.

Edward’s son Edward II lost much that his father had won. He proved unpopular and easily influenced by favorites. His noblemen eventually forced him to abdicate (give up the throne). His son Edward III sought to win back England’s lands in France, and in 1337, began a war against the French—the Hundred Years’ War. This war, between England and France, was actually a series of wars that lasted from 1337 to 1453. England fought to recover French territory it had lost in the 1200’s, including Normandy and part of southwestern France. France wanted to regain territory, mainly in southwestern France, that England still held. See Hundred Years’ War.

Edward II’s son Edward III became king in 1327. His mother was the sister of three French kings. The war began in 1337, when the French king, Philip VI, declared he would take over lands held by Edward in France. Edward, in turn, formally claimed the French throne. The wars began well for Edward, with two major English successes. The English routed the French at the Battle of Crécy in 1346, and again at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, when they were led by the Black Prince, son of Edward III. The French recovered during the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV of England. See Crécy, Battle of; Poitiers, Battle of.

Henry V resumed the attack on France in the early 1400’s. Most of the English successes came from the skill of Welsh and English archers using the longbow. Henry V’s archers were the decisive factor in the victory at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Henry then forced the king of France to accept him as regent (temporary ruler) and heir to the French throne. After Henry died in 1422, the French disputed the English claim to the throne, and the war flared again. By 1428, the English had swept through northern France.

In 1429, Joan of Arc, a farmer’s daughter, inspired the French to fight successfully. The English captured Joan and burned her at the stake in 1431. But the French kept on winning. When the war ended in 1453, England had lost all its French possessions except Calais.

The Wars of the Roses.

A struggle for the throne began to develop near the end of the Hundred Years’ War. Henry VI of the House (family) of Lancaster had become king in 1422, when he was less than a year old. He was a weak ruler, and the nobles of the House of York decided to overthrow him. The House of York was descended from another son of Edward III, Edmund, Duke of York. The wars that resulted came to be called the Wars of the Roses because York’s emblem was a white rose and Lancaster’s a red rose. The wars began in 1455. Edward IV of York won the throne from Henry VI in 1461, but Henry won it back in 1470. In 1471, Edward again defeated Henry and became king. Henry was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and soon died, probably murdered. See Wars of the Roses.

Edward survived attempts to dethrone him, and except for a few months in 1470 and 1471, he remained king until his death in 1483. When Edward died, his two sons were still children. His brother, Richard of York, imprisoned the boys in the Tower of London and declared himself King Richard III. Most historians believe he had the boys murdered, although there is no conclusive proof of the crime.

Soon after Richard became king, Henry Tudor claimed the throne as heir of the House of Lancaster. His forces killed Richard and defeated the Yorkists in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. Henry became king as Henry VII. Many historians consider the Battle of Bosworth Field as marking the end of the wars. Other scholars view the Battle of Stoke, won easily by Henry in 1487, as the wars’ final engagement. See Bosworth Field.

The growth of trade.

Medieval England’s most important export was wool. English wool was considered the best in Europe. Much of it went to Flanders (now mainly Belgium) to be woven into cloth. In the 1330’s, Edward III brought some Flemish weavers to England to help develop the English woolen-cloth industry. Soon, exports of raw English wool declined, and the manufacture and export of English cloth increased.

Increasing trade led to the expansion of such towns as London, Norwich, and Bristol. But most medieval towns were small. Townspeople sold candles, clothes, farm implements, and other manufactured items to people in the surrounding countryside. As towns grew, the citizens acquired written grants called charters from the king or from their lords. A charter freed the townspeople from manorial obligations and gave them the right to appoint a mayor and other officials. These towns became known as boroughs.

The possession of a charter also gave townspeople the right to set up associations called guilds to control their trades and industries. At first, a town would have one merchant guild to control all its trades. In the 1300’s, this was increasingly replaced in most towns by several craft guilds, each controlling a particular trade. Members of a craft guild were all skilled master craftsmen. The guilds prevented outsiders from becoming craftsmen inside the towns. They also regulated prices, standards of work, and wages. The guilds shared in the social life of the town, holding feasts, caring for needy members, and performing mystery plays, which usually centered on religious themes. See Guild.

Most of the 200 boroughs held a weekly market at which local people bought and sold goods. Others staged annual fairs, which drew people from far and wide. Another 500 towns had weekly markets governed by special charters without the full rights and responsibilities of the borough charters.

During this period, foreign merchants conducted much of England’s overseas trade. Some lived in England. They included Venetians and merchants of a mainly German trading alliance called the Hanseatic League.

The spread of learning.

In Norman times, the kings and nobles of England had spoken French. But after the loss of Normandy in 1204, they also began to speak English, which was enriched by the addition of many French words. During the 1300’s, English gradually became the dominant language and English literature flourished. English poetry became important for the first time. In the late 1300’s, William Langland wrote The Vision of Piers Plowman, one of the greatest poems in English. The poet Geoffrey Chaucer helped shape the English language with such works as The Canterbury Tales (about 1386-1400).

English education had already been stimulated by the foundation of universities at Oxford and Cambridge in the late 1100’s. William of Wykeham, the bishop of Winchester, established the first large school, Winchester College, in 1382. In 1440, King Henry VI founded Eton College, which became one of the United Kingdom’s leading secondary schools.

In the 1400’s, England felt the influence of the Renaissance, a period of intense cultural activity that dominated literature and other arts and brought renewed interest in the culture of ancient Greece and Rome. New subjects of study widened the teaching of schools and universities. For the first time, a class of educated people arose who did not belong to the clergy. William Caxton, an English printer, set up the first printing press in England near Westminster Abbey, London, in 1476, 20 years after its invention in Germany. Printers soon produced books cheaply and in great numbers. See Renaissance (The Renaissance outside Italy).

Henry VII.

In 1485, Henry Tudor claimed the throne as heir of the House of Lancaster, ruling as Henry VII. England and Wales came under the strong rule of the Tudors. Henry brought about the conditions for later Tudor greatness. In 1486, he helped ensure future peace by marrying Edward IV’s daughter, uniting the houses of Lancaster and York. Henry restored royal finances by collecting taxes strictly and by forcing great landowners to make loans to his treasury. He extended royal control over local government through local officials called justices of the peace. He eventually used laws and the courts to make some nobles reduce the size of their private armies. Henry crushed revolts by opponents who tried to claim the throne for impostors, such as Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, two young men who pretended to be Yorkist heirs of Edward IV. See Henry VII.

Widening horizons (1500’s-1600’s)

The Tudor period, from 1485 to 1603, was an age of new ideas and developments. The Renaissance dominated literature and other arts. A religious movement called the Reformation led to the birth of Protestantism. The Tudor monarchs increased the power of the throne and achieved good government and internal peace and order. Changes in farming and in manufacturing brought increased prosperity. English seafarers explored many parts of the world, leading to an expansion of trade and the beginnings of colonization.

Henry VIII

inherited great wealth when he became king in 1509. His father, Henry VII, had been a thrifty ruler. Henry VIII was talented and popular, but he was also selfish and wasteful. He enjoyed luxury, sports, good food, and music.

In the years from 1514 to 1529, Henry gave much of the responsibilities of government to Thomas Wolsey. As legatus a latere (the pope’s representative) and archbishop of York, Wolsey held great power in the Church. As Henry’s lord chancellor, Wolsey dominated the civil government and the administration of justice. But then, Henry wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the first of his six wives. He wanted to remarry, because he wanted a male heir to prevent any fighting over the succession to the throne. Only one of their children—a daughter—had survived, and Catherine was too old to have more children. Wolsey could not persuade the pope to dissolve the marriage, so in 1529, Henry took away Wolsey’s authority (see Wolsey, Thomas). In 1534, Henry had Parliament pass a law declaring that the king, not the pope, was supreme head of the church in England. A number of Henry’s subjects who opposed him were imprisoned or executed for treason. The most famous of these victims were the English author, statesman, and the scholar Sir Thomas More (also known as Saint Thomas More) and Saint John Fisher, the Roman Catholic bishop of Rochester (see More, Sir Thomas and Fisher, Saint John).

During Henry VIII’s reign, England and Wales were finally united. The Welsh people had revolted against the English several times after Edward I had conquered Wales in the 1280’s. But the Welsh gradually accepted the idea of union with England. In acts of 1536 and 1543, Henry joined both countries under one system of government. A similar attempt at a union with Ireland in 1541 led to a century of Irish rebellion and English repression. See Henry VIII.

The English Reformation.

In the early 1500’s, parts of Europe rejected the authority and teaching of the pope. This religious movement, called the Protestant Reformation, began when a German monk, Martin Luther, protested certain practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Protestant influences reached England and increased religious discontent there. Many English people resented taxation by the pope and the wealth of the clergy. A minority of people wanted an English Bible and church services in English instead of Latin.

The English Reformation coincided with Henry VIII’s attempt to get papal agreement for his divorce. The Parliament abolished the pope’s authority over the Church of England. In 1534, Parliament agreed to make Henry head of the Church of England. Some people, including the lord chancellor, Sir Thomas More, were executed for opposing the establishment of the king as the head of the Church of England. Henry did not favor Protestant ideas, so worship changed little during his reign. But he did order that every church should be provided with an English Bible for people to read. This translation of the Latin Bible was largely the work of Miles Coverdale, an English bishop.

In the late 1530’s, through his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, Henry dissolved the monasteries and took over their land and wealth. The monasteries owned about one-fifth of the land and appointed about one-third of the clergy. The monks received pensions if they left quickly, and some got other compensation as well. An uprising against Henry’s action, called the Pilgrimage of Grace, took place in the north in 1536 and 1537. It was mainly a protest against the dissolution of the smaller monasteries. But the rebels were also unhappy with taxes, interference from the central government, and the enclosure (fencing in) of previously open grazing land.

Henry VIII sold most of the monastery lands to strengthen his treasury and pay for his overseas wars and ambitions. Nobles, merchants, and prosperous farmers and tradesmen acquired most of the land and the right to appoint their local clergy. This new wealth helped increase the power and influence of these groups in English society.

The Irish.

Henry II of England had allowed his Norman barons to interfere in Ireland’s affairs in 1169. In 1171, to prevent the barons from setting up their own kingdoms there, he had declared himself Lord of Ireland. But Henry did not try to halt the conquest of Ireland by Norman barons from England, called Anglo-Normans. By the late 1200’s, powerful Anglo-Norman families controlled about three-quarters of Ireland.

The Wars of the Roses weakened English rule in Ireland. By 1485, the English governed little more than the Pale, a small area around Dublin. Henry VII sent an army to Ireland to compel the Irish Parliament to obtain his approval before it could meet and propose bills.

Henry VIII also tried to subdue Ireland. But the Fitzgeralds, a noble Irish family, challenged his power. In 1537, Henry hanged the Earl of Kildare and five of his uncles at Tyburn, in London. In 1541, the Irish Parliament granted Henry the title King of Ireland. For a full account of the history of Ireland during these times, see Ireland, History of.

The later Tudors.

When Henry VIII died in 1547, his 9-year-old son, a sickly child, became king as Edward VI. Because Edward was under legal age, his uncle Edward Seymour, who soon became Duke of Somerset, governed the kingdom as lord protector. In 1549, John Dudley, the Earl of Warwick, seized control from Somerset. In 1551, Dudley became Duke of Northumberland. Both Somerset and Northumberland supported religious reforms. During Edward’s reign, the Protestants made more changes in the Church of England. Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, organized the preparation of the Book of Common Prayer for use in church services in English. He also stripped the churches of all religious decoration, filling them instead with memorial altars and spaces dedicated to particular families.

When Edward VI died in 1553, the Duke of Northumberland proclaimed Jane Grey, a cousin of Edward, as queen. But most of the people supported Mary Tudor, Edward’s half-sister. Mary became queen within a few days. Jane was arrested and later executed. Mary, a Roman Catholic, restored papal authority over the Church of England and persecuted Protestants. About 280 people were burned at the stake during her short reign, earning her the nickname “Bloody Mary.” See Mary I.

In 1554, Mary married Philip, the son of the Habsburg Emperor Charles V. In 1555, her husband became Philip II of Spain. The marriage was unpopular in England. By the marriage treaty, Philip became king of England with limited power. When Mary died childless in 1558, Philip’s power in England ceased. During Mary’s reign, England lost Calais, its last possession on the European mainland, to the French.

The Elizabethan Era.

Elizabeth, half-sister to Edward and Mary, became queen in 1558. Elizabeth was a strong but cautious ruler who pitted her enemies against one another. One of her first acts was to reestablish the Church of England. Initially, she tried to win Catholic support by making the church services more traditional. But after 1580, she began to persecute remaining Catholics as harshly as her sister had persecuted Protestants. While Mary had burned Protestants as heretics, Elizabeth tortured Catholics as traitors. In foreign affairs, Elizabeth played for time, avoiding war with Spain until England’s navy became strong.

Under Elizabeth, England advanced in many areas. Merchants formed a great trading company, the East India Company, in 1600. Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other daring English adventurers explored the Caribbean and the coasts of North and South America. English literature flowered during Elizabeth’s reign with the works of such great writers as Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, and—above all—William Shakespeare. Notable composers from this period include Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. See Elizabeth I.

The reign of Elizabeth I was a prosperous period. Clothiers (clothmakers) had organized their expanding industry into the domestic system. By this system, they bought wool from farmers, distributed it to spinners and weavers who worked at home, and then sold or exported the finished cloth. The clothiers offered good prices for wool, and sheep farming became profitable. Some lords of the manor increased the land on which they kept sheep by enclosing open areas that peasants had used as pasture for their own animals or depriving tenants of their landholdings. Some tenant farmers became homeless beggars. Parliament passed several laws to deal with this situation. An important law of 1601, the Poor Law, regulated the treatment of beggars to provide them with relief. In time, England’s growing prosperity provided new jobs.

The Elizabethan Age was important culturally. Popular pleasures included archery, bowls, dancing, and bear-baiting. People liked music, and wealthy people were expected to play musical instruments on social occasions. People also enjoyed dressing up. They acted masques, pageants, and plays at Christmas and other special times.

Exploration overseas.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian navigator in the service of Spain, reached the Americas. Five years later, the Portuguese sea captain Vasco da Gama sailed a new route to India. These discoveries made Spain and Portugal rich. In 1497, under the authorization of Henry VII of England, John Cabot, an Italian-born navigator, sailed northwestward to seek another way to East Asia. Instead, he reached either Newfoundland or Nova Scotia in what is now Canada and claimed the region for England. The seas in this area were valuable fishing waters. Henry VII also improved the Royal Navy. He built several royal warships and a dry dock at Portsmouth. Henry VIII built about 50 ships, including the flagship Great Harry.

During Elizabeth’s reign, many English sea captains continued to seek alternative routes to India. Others sought trade with Spanish colonies in America. A few took enslaved Black capitves from western Africa and sold them to European colonists in Central and North America. After the Spaniards attacked an English captain named John Hawkins in a Mexican port in 1568, many English captains received government commissions to attack Spanish ships and ports. The commanders and crew of such privately owned attack ships were called privateers. One privateer, Sir Francis Drake, sailed round the world between 1577 and 1580. He returned rich with plunder (stolen goods) (see Drake, Sir Francis).

Other English explorers tried to found overseas colonies but were unsuccessful. Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed to Newfoundland in 1583 to found a colony. But he died on the return voyage without establishing a settlement. His half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, sponsored two unsuccessful attempts to found a colony in Virginia in North America.

Overseas trading companies established in Tudor times became successful and prosperous. After 1555, the Muscovy Company ran a flourishing trade with Russia. The East India Company, in time, brought most of India under its rule.

Rivalry between England and Spain finally led to war. Spain wished to crush England because England was Protestant and because English ships raided Spanish colonies and competed with Spanish settlers and traders. King Philip II of Spain built a huge fleet called the Armada to conquer England. But an English fleet led by Admiral Lord Howard of Effingham defeated the Armada in 1588.

The union of the kingdoms.

Elizabeth I never married and had no children. Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, had fled to England after being deposed by her rebellious Protestant subjects. She was the mother of James VI of Scotland. Elizabeth had Mary executed for treason in 1587. After Elizabeth died in 1603, James also became king of England as James I. James was the first king from the Stuart dynasty (family of rulers) to rule England. The two kingdoms kept their own laws and parliaments. The union was symbolized by a new national flag, the Union Jack. This flag, which was adopted in 1606, combined the English flag of Saint George with the Scottish flag of Saint Andrew.

James I.

James’s reign was difficult. The English people disliked him. He increased royal spending, went into debt, and raised taxes. He quarreled frequently with Parliament because he wanted to rule as an absolute monarch. He believed in the divine right of kings—that is, that kings got their right to rule solely and directly from God. See James I.

Under James, the Roman Catholics tried to regain the influence that their religion had had before Elizabeth I’s reign. A group of extremist Roman Catholics planned to kill James and the members of Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605, by placing explosives in the basement of the Parliament building. Their conspiracy became known as the Gunpowder Plot. The plot failed when an informer notified a member of the House of Lords. Government officials searched the Parliament building and found a man named Guy Fawkes with the explosives. Fawkes and eight others were later executed for their involvement. The British still observe November 5, now known as Guy Fawkes Day, with fireworks and bonfires. See Fawkes, Guy.

Strict Protestants called Puritans also opposed James I. They wished to reform the Church of England to remove the ritual practices that had remained in its services after its break with Rome. In 1604, James met with Puritan representatives and bishops of the Church of England in the Hampton Court Conference. This meeting did little to resolve the disputes between the bishops and the Puritans. However, the bishops, and some Puritan clergymen, did agree to produce a new English translation of the Bible. It was published in 1611 and became known as the King James Version or Authorized Version. See Hampton Court Conference.

English sailors made further voyages of discovery. William Baffin and Henry Hudson sailed to Canada, where several geographical features still bear their names. The first permanent English colony, Jamestown, in Virginia, was founded in 1607. Another successful English colony was established a few years later on the island of Bermuda in the North Atlantic. In 1620, a group of English separatists (strict Protestants who wanted to separate from the Church of England) sailed for the Americas in the ship Mayflower to seek a place where they could worship freely. These people, later known as the Pilgrims, founded Plymouth, in what is now Massachusetts, later that year.

Important intellectual and cultural developments occurred during the first half of the 1600’s. The English physician William Harvey discovered how blood circulates in the body. Inigo Jones became the first important English architect. The poets John Donne, Ben Jonson, and Andrew Marvell were among those who dominated English literature. John Milton became the greatest writer of the mid-1600’s.

The king and Parliament.

After Charles I became king in 1625, the dispute between the king and Parliament worsened. In 1628, Parliament angered Charles by passing a Petition of Right. This petition was an attempt to create a second Magna Carta, limiting the king’s freedom to tax and penalize his subjects. The document emphasized the people’s rights and demanded that no person could be imprisoned without a trial. Charles agreed to the petition, although he had no intention of keeping the agreement. See Petition of Right.

From 1629 to 1640, Charles ruled without Parliament. He raised taxes in various ways, including some that many people thought illegal. For example, every year from 1634 to 1641, he turned ship money, a tax traditionally paid only by port cities for naval defense in times of emergency, into a regular tax on all of his English and Welsh subjects. See Charles I.

Charles supported the religious policy of William Laud, whom Charles appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. Laud punished clergymen who refused to use the Church of England’s official book of doctrines, prayers, and worship services, the Book of Common Prayer. This action caused as many as 30,000 Puritans to follow the Pilgrims to North America. See Laud, William.

In 1637, Charles and Laud attempted to force the Scottish Presbyterians to use a version of the Book of Common Prayer. In 1638, thousands of Scots signed a document called the Solemn League and Covenant, in which they promised to defend their religion. Charles sent an army into Scotland, but no fighting occurred. Charles’s most trusted minister, the Earl of Strafford, then advised him to call a Parliament, so Charles did. This Parliament refused to grant the king money, and he dismissed it immediately. It became known as the Short Parliament.

Charles raised another army without adequate resources to maintain it. It was defeated by the Scots, who occupied the northeastern part of England as far south as Newcastle. They also demanded that Charles call another Parliament, afterward called the Long Parliament. This Parliament, led by the Puritan John Pym, opposed Charles in many ways. It imprisoned and later executed both Strafford and Laud. It abolished the court of the Star Chamber, used by Charles against his opponents. Parliament prohibited Charles from raising money without its permission. Charles reacted angrily to these moves, and in 1642, events moved rapidly toward the outbreak of the English Civil War. See Long Parliament.

The Civil War

was an intensely bitter conflict that split communities and even families. People who supported the king in the war were called Royalists or Cavaliers. Many of Parliament’s greatest supporters were Puritans, who were called Roundheads because they cut their hair short. The war spread to all of Charles’s kingdom. There were civil wars within and between England, Ireland, and Scotland, with armies from each area rampaging amid the others. The decisive factor that brought Charles’s defeat was the rise of the New Model Army. This professional force had as one of its commanders a landowner named Oliver Cromwell. In 1646, Charles surrendered to Scottish troops, but the next year, they turned him over to the English Parliament. Attempts to negotiate a settlement between the king and Parliament failed. In 1647 and 1648, the Army removed the more moderate members from Parliament. The remaining members set up a special court, which condemned Charles to death. He was beheaded in 1649.

Prince Charles, the son of King Charles I, had taken refuge in France in 1646. He returned to Scotland to claim the monarchy. But Cromwell defeated him at the Battles of Dunbar in 1650 and Worcester in 1651, and he fled abroad again. See English Civil War.

The Commonwealth.

After Charles’s execution, England became a republic called the Commonwealth of England. A committee of Parliament ruled the country. Cromwell was the most powerful person in England because the Army supported him. He wished to develop a new and permanent form of government. But he met much opposition. Cromwell suppressed a democratic group called the Levellers, and he used troops to dissolve the Long Parliament (see Levellers).

In 1653, the Army introduced a written constitution naming Cromwell as lord protector but also carefully balancing the executive, lawmaking, and judicial wings of government. The constitution reformed the way elections were held, provided for a standing army and navy, and guaranteed more religious freedom than ever before. In 1655, Cromwell dissolved Parliament, and for more than a year, ruled through officers called major generals. Yet another Parliament, elected in 1656, was dissolved in 1658. See Cromwell, Oliver.

The Commonwealth government won successes overseas. It passed a Navigation Act in 1651, which ordered all imports to be carried in English ships or in ships of the country of origin. This brought war with the Dutch, who shipped goods for the commercial nations of the world. A war with Spain, partly over British rights to trade with Spanish colonies in America, lasted from 1655 to 1659. The British won Jamaica from Spain. During his rule, Cromwell brought Scotland and Ireland under the control of England. His armies swept through both countries and ruthlessly put down all resisting forces. See Navigation Acts.

But the Commonwealth remained unpopular with many people. The Puritans forbade people to use the Book of Common Prayer or to celebrate the feasts of Christmas or Easter, which they saw as rooted in pagan festivals. They also suppressed theaters and other entertainment. People resented the Army’s rule and the heavy taxes imposed for its upkeep. See Commonwealth of England.

The Restoration.

After Cromwell died in 1658, his son Richard became lord protector. But Richard could not handle the affairs of government. In addition, the people were dissatisfied with the Protectorate and wanted a monarchy again. Richard soon resigned. General George Monck, the military governor of Scotland, marched to London and recalled the Long Parliament. Parliament restored the monarchy, and Prince Charles returned to England in 1660. He was crowned King Charles II in 1661. See Restoration.

Under Charles II, Parliament kept most of the powers it had won, and authority was divided between the king and Parliament. Charles was a popular, pleasure-loving king. He was known for his many flirtations with women, including the actress Nell Gwyn, and for the large number of illegitimate children he fathered. But Charles was also a man of culture and vision, and his reign, known as the Restoration, was a time of artistic, intellectual, and social development. Henry Purcell composed great music, and Sir Christopher Wren dominated English architecture. John Locke contributed much new thought to philosophy. The mathematician and scientist Sir Isaac Newton invented a new kind of mathematics, showed how the universe is held together in his theory of gravitation, and discovered the secrets of light and color. Under Charles’s support, the Royal Society, an organization of the country’s leading scientists, and the Royal Greenwich Observatory, an astronomical facility, were founded. See Charles II.

Charles II also helped to foster a more relaxed social atmosphere that emerged after the restrictions of Puritanism were removed. London became a lively and colorful city. Two Londoners, Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, wrote accounts of the times in their diaries. Theaters reopened. The first coffee houses appeared, and some of them developed into the first clubs.

Two disasters marred the gaiety: the Great Plague in 1665 and the Great Fire in 1666. The Great Plague was an outbreak of plague that hit London, killing about 70,000 people (see Great Plague). The next year, the Great Fire of London broke out near London Bridge. The fire swept through London’s tightly packed wooden buildings. In five days, the fire destroyed about 13,000 houses in the business area of the city, 89 parish churches, and the old St. Paul’s Cathedral (see Great Fire of London).

Parliament and the church.

Parliament passed several measures during Charles’s reign that restored power to the Church of England by restricting rights of followers of the other religions. The Corporation Act prevented people outside the Church of England from holding public office. The Act of Uniformity required clergymen to consent to the Book of Common Prayer or be removed from their parishes (see Uniformity, Act of). The Convertible Act prevented large groups of Nonconformists from holding religious meetings, and the Five Mile Act restricted the activities of Nonconformist ministers, especially in towns. See Free church (History).

Parliament also continued its hostility to Roman Catholics. In 1673 and 1678, Parliament passed Test Acts, reserving official posts for members of the Church of England (see Test Acts). Titus Oates, a Protestant extremist, spread a false rumor that Roman Catholics, plotting with French troops, were planning to kill Charles and burn down Parliament. The people were outraged by this fictitious conspiracy of Catholics against Protestants, called the Popish Plot of 1678. Protestants hunted down and executed several Catholics (see Popish Plot).

Parliament also tried to pass the Exclusion Bill to stop Charles’s Roman Catholic brother and heir, James, from ever gaining the throne. Charles prevented the bill from becoming law by dismissing Parliament. In 1683, an attempt against the lives of Charles and James, called the Rye House Plot, failed.

James II.

When Charles II died in 1685, James became king as James II. James, a Roman Catholic, wanted to restore Catholicism and absolute monarchy in England. Protestant rebels in the west of England who were opposed to a Roman Catholic king led an uprising. The rebels wanted to depose James and make the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, king. But Monmouth was defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor and was later executed. Judge George Jeffreys and four other judges sentenced many rebels to death or banishment at assizes (court sessions) afterward called the Bloody Assizes. See Bloody Assizes.

Many people felt that James broke the law by appointing Roman Catholics to state, army, and church posts. He tried to win the support of Protestant Nonconformists by issuing a Declaration of Indulgence, ending discrimination against them and Roman Catholics. Seven bishops protested, and James imprisoned them in the Tower of London. A jury made up of people who lived on the support of the royal family acquitted the bishops.

The Glorious Revolution.

James had two Protestant daughters. Many members of Parliament felt that they could endure James, provided that one of his daughters would succeed him. But in 1688, James had a son, whom he planned to bring up as a Roman Catholic. This frightened most politicians. They invited a Protestant Dutch prince called William of Orange, James’s nephew and the husband of James II’s elder daughter, Mary, to invade England. William landed in Dorset and marched on London, where he was welcomed. James fled to France.

People called the events of 1688 the Glorious Revolution because the change of rulers came almost without bloodshed, at least in England. In Scotland and Ireland, bloody civil wars continued for several years. In 1689, William and Mary became joint rulers of England after accepting what became known as the Bill of Rights. This famous document assured the people certain basic civil rights. It also made it illegal for the king to keep a standing army, to levy taxes without Parliament’s approval, and to be or to marry a Roman Catholic. Parliament also passed a Toleration Act, granting freedom of worship to dissenters (Protestants outside the Church of England) but not to Roman Catholics.

James led a rebellion against William in Ireland. But in 1690, William defeated James at the Battle of the Boyne. This event is still celebrated by Irish Protestants nicknamed Orangemen, because their first members were supporters of William of Orange. James fled back to France. See Boyne, Battle of the.

William III remained ruler of the Netherlands. He sought to defend the Netherlands against France and enlisted England’s support for an alliance that became known as the Grand Alliance. England fought France with the Alliance from 1689 to 1697 and saved the Netherlands. The English government’s need for money in the war encouraged the financier William Paterson to found the Bank of England in 1694. The bank’s funders lent the state 1,200,000 English pounds. The Bank of England is now the central bank of the United Kingdom—that is, it holds the country’s cash reserves, issues bank notes, and performs other financial services for the government.

Mary II died in 1694, leaving William III no children to succeed him. In 1701, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement to ensure that future monarchs would be Protestants. According to the act, if Mary’s sister, Anne, had no surviving children at her death, the throne would pass to Sophia of Hanover, or to her heirs. Sophia was a granddaughter of James I. See Settlement, Act of.

Years of progress (1700’s)

At the beginning of the 1700’s, Britain was still mainly a nation of rural villages and country towns. Traveling was hazardous, and few people made long journeys. By the middle of the 1700’s, a period of rapid industrialization called the Industrial Revolution got underway. It swept away many aspects of rural life and made Britain the world’s richest country. Overseas trade flourished as Britain’s economy grew. Britain expanded its control in Europe, India, and North America. Meanwhile, Parliament won unquestioned control over the monarchy.

The Augustan Age.

King William III died in 1702 and was succeeded by Anne. Her reign saw the growing importance of political parties. Two groups, the Whigs and the Tories, had first appeared during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679 to 1681. The Whigs had wanted to pass a bill in Parliament in exclude James from the succession to the throne. The Tories opposed the bill. For most of Anne’s reign, the Whigs had a majority in the House of Commons, the elected house of Parliament. But a general election in 1710 gave the Tories their first parliamentary majority. See Anne.

During the early and mid-1700’s, English literature reached new heights. Writers admired and tried to recapture the reason, balance, and harmony of such ancient Roman writers as Virgil and Horace, who wrote during the golden age of Roman literature in the reign of Emperor Augustus (27 B.C.-A.D. 14). For this reason, historians call the first half of the 1700’s the Augustan Age. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele wrote essays. Jonathan Swift wrote satires, including Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Alexander Pope composed poetry, and Oliver Goldsmith wrote dramas, poetry, and prose. Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe (1719) and contributed to the development of the novel. Early novelists included Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Tobias Smollet, and Laurence Sterne. During the middle and late 1700’s, the scholar, poet, and essayist Samuel Johnson greatly influenced other writers.

During the early 1700’s, English painters followed the tradition of portrait painting established by a German-born painter, Sir Godfrey Kneller. Kneller was well known for his portraits of monarchs and other famous people of his time. The English painter William Hogarth painted satirical scenes from contemporary life. The architects William Kent and Sir John Vanbrugh built grand houses in what became known as the Early Georgian style. George Frideric Handel, a German-born musician, composed operas and choral works.

Popular entertainment included bear-baiting and cockfighting. The first rules for prizefighting were framed in 1743. The hunting of deer and hares declined, and wealthy landowners took to fox hunting. Cricket became a major sport. Croquet was popular with aristocrats. Horse racing and organized gambling were also popular.

The most important constitutional event of Anne’s reign was the Act of Union, passed in 1707. This act joined the kingdoms of Scotland and England into what it called the “united kingdom of Great Britain.” The Scots dissolved their own Parliament and sent members to the British Parliament instead, but Scottish laws and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland remained unchanged.

British forces fought France in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) to prevent the grandson of King Louis XIV of France from becoming king of Spain. Britain would not allow the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium) to fall under French control. The allied armies, led by the Duke of Marlborough, defeated France. Under the peace treaty, signed at Utrecht in 1713, England won Newfoundland, mainland Nova Scotia, and the territory around Hudson Bay from France. England also got full control of the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, previously divided with France, and gained Gibraltar and the island of Minorca from Spain. Britain also gained the asiento, a monopoly on selling enslaved Black people to Spanish colonies.

The beginning of cabinet government.

Queen Anne died in 1714. Her second cousin George, a German prince, was her closest Protestant relative and became king. George I did not speak English well. Soon after George’s succession, the Whigs returned to power. He chose his team of ministers from the Whig Party and seldom attended their meetings. His chief minister, Sir Robert Walpole, took control of the council. Increasingly, the monarch recognized the need to select a team of ministers who sat in Parliament and who could be sure of getting his important business approved. This became known as cabinet government. When a team of ministers lost control of Parliament, they fell from power and the monarch appointed new ministers or called general elections. Walpole is considered Britain’s first prime minister.

Growing wealth.

A great expansion of trade attracted investment in commercial companies. English investors gambled feverishly in stocks and shares. An organization called the South Sea Company held exclusive rights to the Spanish slavery trade and trade opportunities in South America. In 1720, investors rushed to buy stocks in the company, and the prices rose to inflated rates. Several months later, the buyers began to sell, and the price of the company’s stock plummeted in a disaster called the South Sea Bubble. Many investors, including several government ministers, went bankrupt. Robert Walpole was important in sorting out the financial chaos. See South Sea Bubble.

British overseas commerce expanded. Britain’s colonies provided a market for goods from home. British companies profited by selling products from the colonies, such as cotton, sugar, and tobacco, in Europe after processing the goods in Britain. British merchants also traded in enslaved people. Bristol and Liverpool grew rich on the profits of slavery. The cotton industry developed quickly and became more important than the wool industry by the end of the 1700’s.

Powerful landed aristocrats appeared elegant and dignified. Their great houses and trim estates showed a cultivated sense of artistry. They gave stately balls and receptions, collected art treasures, and supported skilled craftworkers. This was not, however, an age of high moral standards among the upper classes. There were many financial and sexual scandals.

Alongside the elegance and luxury, many people lived in conditions of dirt, disease, and poverty. Towns were unsanitary, unpaved, and unlit. Many of London’s people lived in crowded slums. Crime, especially petty crime, flourished almost unchecked, but people who could not pay their debts went to prison.

Efforts to improve social conditions

came from some people. They founded charity schools for the children of poor people. Thomas Guy, an English printer, bookseller, and philanthropist, established Guy’s Hospital, in London. Another philanthropist, Thomas Coram, set up a foundling hospital for abandoned babies. A member of Parliament named James Oglethorpe founded the American colony of Georgia as a refuge for debtors. The author Henry Fielding, who was also a magistrate (minor judge), organized the Bow Street runners, the first regular police force in London (see Bow Street runners).

The growing empire.

In the late 1600’s, England and France had begun to challenge each other for commercial and colonial control of North America. Troops, traders, and settlers of both nations battled in the New World. British and French trading companies also competed for control in India. In Europe, England had fought France in a series of wars. But none of these conflicts had settled the rivalry between the two countries. Another war was inevitable.

In 1739, a war between Britain and Spain became part of a general European struggle, the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). In this conflict, Britain once more fought France.

In 1756, Britain and France went to war again, in the Seven Years’ War. The war’s main causes were disagreements over colonial trade, and most of the war was fought in America, Canada, and India. In America, the war was called the French and Indian War. In Europe, Britain and its ally, Prussia, fought France and its allies, Austria and Russia. Prussia did most of the fighting in Europe, while Britain battled France in North America and India. The war ended in 1763 in a triumph for Britain. France lost almost all its territories in North America and India. Britain won Canada and all French possessions east of the Mississippi River. The Treaty of Paris, which ended the Seven Years’ War in 1763, expanded the British Empire to its largest extent yet. See French and Indian wars; Seven Years’ War.

Britain gained other new territories abroad. Captain James Cook claimed part of Australia and New Zealand for the British in 1770. In 1787, the British government began to send convicts to Australia. Free settlers arrived there later (see Australia, History of; Cook, James).

The Georgian period

in the arts took its name from four kings—George I, George II, George III, and George IV—who reigned from 1714 to 1830. The Georgian style of architecture was generally graceful and simple. Two of its greatest architects and designers were the Adam brothers, who also designed the interiors of their buildings, including furniture. Craftworkers who worked with them included Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite. Georgian architecture reached a final purity of design in some of the Regency style buildings of John Nash and others. Portrait painting also reached a high standard during the 1700’s with such painters as Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. See Georgian architecture.

Advances in science.

The Scottish physician and chemist Joseph Black identified what is now called carbon dioxide as a distinct gas and published his findings in 1756. In the 1680’s, the astronomer Edmund Halley had correctly predicted the return in 1759 of a comet now known by his name. The engineer William Murdock used coal gas for lighting in 1792. The physicist Henry Cavendish, the chemist Joseph Priestley, and others experimented in electricity. The physician Edward Jenner in 1796 vaccinated people against smallpox.

Progress in agriculture.

The 1700’s saw many changes in agriculture. The rise in population and the growth of towns increased the demand for food and made farming more profitable. New discoveries and inventions also helped increase productivity. For example, the English farmer Robert Bakewell and others improved breeds of sheep and cattle.

In some areas, farmers began using new systems of crop rotation. In one such system, based on a similar technique developed earlier in the Low Countries, farmers grew wheat the first year, turnips the second year, then barley, and then clover. They used the turnip and clover for winter animal fodder (food). By rotating these fodder crops with grain crops, the farmers in certain regions of England could keep all their land in production each year and still maintain the quality of the soil. In addition, the extra fodder meant they could raise more animals.

In many country areas, the changes in agriculture brought hardship. To deal with rural poverty in Berkshire, the local justices of the peace met in 1795 at Speenhamland (now part of Newbury) and decided that a farmworker whose wages fell below a set level should receive an extra payment from the authorities. This raised the tax rates of farmers and landowners, who reacted by paying their workers low wages. The Speenhamland system was imitated throughout Britain, but it kept many farm laborers poor.

The Industrial Revolution,

a period of many technical innovations and rapid industrial development, began in the 1700’s. It started in England’s cotton textile industry and spread to mining, transportation, and other fields. For a full discussion of the many inventions that made these changes possible, see the article Industrial Revolution.

Before the Industrial Revolution, most people had worked at home. The Industrial Revolution brought the invention of power-driven machines that gradually reduced the need for hand labor. Large factories replaced homes and small workshops as manufacturing centers. Because the new machines needed coal for power and transporting coal was expensive, industrial areas grew up around the coal fields of Clydeside in central Scotland, the Midlands in central England, northern England, and southern Wales.

Religious and social changes.

John Wesley, a clergyman who was dissatisfied with the Church of England, founded the Methodist movement, preaching the need for prayer, self-sacrifice, and charitable work. Laborers and their families in the new factory towns accepted his message eagerly. Many churches started weekend educational centers called Sunday schools, where teachers instructed poor children in Christianity and in reading and writing. See Wesley, John.

Improvements in travel.

In the early 1700’s, travel was slow, difficult, and even dangerous. Few communities kept roads in good condition, and almost no good roads had been built since Roman times. People formed local companies called turnpike trusts to improve the roads. Through acts of Parliament, they gained control over stretches of roads, upon which they set up barriers called turnpikes. At the turnpikes, they charged tolls on vehicles. This money was used to pay for road improvements. John McAdam, a Scottish engineer, invented a new method of paving roads, now called macadamizing. Macadam consists of small, broken stones. Layers of macadam were rolled until solid and smooth to make roads. When the stones were later mixed with tar, the surface became known as tarmacadam or tarmac.

Better roads meant faster travel. Stagecoaches ran regularly between important towns. Starting in 1784, the Post Office used mail coaches to provide regular and speedy transport for passengers and mail.

In 1761, the English canal engineer James Brindley built the first important canal, which linked coal mines at Worsley to Manchester. Owners of factories and mines used barges along canals as a system of transport. By the 1830’s, a network of canals covered Britain.

British engineers made many advances in other fields of civil engineering. Thomas Telford, the road builder, also built bridges and aqueducts for canals. Another engineer, John Smeaton, built the Eddystone Lighthouse in the English Channel using a new design of stone blocks. The lighthouse stood for more than 100 years. Smeaton also designed and built bridges, water mills, and canals.

Losses in America.

In 1763, Britain’s North American colonies consisted of the recently acquired eastern part of what is now Canada, several Caribbean islands, and the 13 colonies that became the United States. Most American colonists were of British descent but had only weak ties with Britain. Communications between Britain and the colonies were slow and poor. The colonists inevitably developed their own ways of life and wanted to manage their own affairs.

The British government claimed that its troops in North America protected the colonists from American Indian attacks. It insisted that the colonists should pay part of the cost of protection. In 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act to raise the required money by taxing the colonists. The colonists in the 13 colonies protested that there should be no taxation without representation in the British Parliament. The British government withdrew the stamp duty but still asserted its right to tax the colonies. The colonists denied this right and rebelled.

The Revolutionary War in America began in 1775. The 13 colonies, but not the Canadian provinces, issued a joint Declaration of Independence the next year. Britain lost the war and, in 1783, it recognized the independence of the colonies, which became the United States of America.

In 1791, the British government reorganized Canada into two provinces. The province of Lower Canada, along the lower Saint Lawrence River and the Atlantic coast, had a French-speaking majority. Upper Canada, north of the Great Lakes and the upper Saint Lawrence, had an English-speaking majority.

Years of transition (1800’s-1830’s)

In 1801, Ireland was fully integrated into the kingdom of Great Britain to form the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom ranked as perhaps the greatest world power. The British ruled the seas and dominated world trade. British leaders sought to keep a balance of power in Europe so that no European nation could control the others.

Union with Ireland.

The English had governed Ireland for centuries, but the Irish hated English rule. Most of the people in Ireland were Roman Catholics, and most of the English were Protestants. Although Ireland had its own parliament, Catholics were not allowed to serve in it.

In 1798, the Irish had rebelled unsuccessfully. British Prime Minister William Pitt then persuaded the British and Irish parliaments to pass the Act of Union of 1801. The act ended Ireland’s parliament and created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

As part of the United Kingdom, Ireland began sending representatives to the British Parliament. But Catholic men, as well as women of any religion, could not serve in the British Parliament or hold public offices. Catholic men won these rights in 1829, but it was almost 100 years before women were allowed to vote, in 1928. See Catholic Emancipation Act.

The Napoleonic Wars.

The French Revolution, which brought the temporary overthrow of the French monarchy, had begun in 1789. At first, many British approved the revolution as a triumph of liberty for the French people. But they changed their mind after the revolution grew more violent. The French people’s execution of their king, Louis XVI, caused indignation in Britain. Then the new French government seized Belgium and threatened the Netherlands. Britain protested. In 1793, Britain and France went to war.

Beginning in 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte, a professional soldier from the island of Corsica, led the French. At the height of his power in 1812, Napoleon controlled most of Europe. In 1803, he began a plan to invade the United Kingdom. But in 1805, the British Admiral Horatio Nelson won a great victory over the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar, off the southern coast of Spain. The Battle of Trafalgar crushed Napoleon’s naval power and ended all his hopes of invading. See Nelson, Horatio; Trafalgar, Battle of.

Napoleon next tried to defeat the British by striking at their dependence on trade. He ordered all countries under his control to close their markets to British goods. The British struck back with a naval blockade of France and its allies and assisted a Spanish revolt against French rule in 1808. But British interference with United States shipping brought on a conflict that Americans call the War of 1812, a brief struggle between American and British forces that ended in a draw in 1815. Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian commander Marshal Gebhard von Blucher. The peace settlement was worked out in a series of meetings in 1814 and 1815 called the Congress of Vienna.

Protecting the balance of power.

The United Kingdom’s statesmen took a prominent part in the peace settlement at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The European leaders at the congress restored monarchies in Italy, Spain, and several other countries where they had been overthrown by Napoleon. New colonial possessions acquired by the British in the Vienna peace settlement included what is now Guyana in northern South America; St. Lucia, Tobago, and Trinidad in the Caribbean Islands; Ceylon (now Sri Lanka); Mauritius; the Cape Colony in southern Africa; and Malta.

Despite the United Kingdom’s support for strong monarchies at the Congress of Vienna, two successive British foreign ministers turned away from that policy. The foreign ministers, Viscount Castlereagh and George Canning, opposed the efforts of the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian emperors to support dictatorial rule in other countries. The British government also supported the Greeks in a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. See Canning, George; Castlereagh, Viscount.

The United Kingdom promptly recognized the independence of several South American colonies that revolted against Spain in the early 1800’s. In 1833, a British fleet captured the Falkland Islands and expelled the Argentines who had begun to settle there in 1826.

British rule in India was extended and improved under the governors general Warren Hastings and the Marquess of Wellesley, whose brother later became the Duke of Wellington. From 1814 to 1816, the British established supremacy over Nepal, and in 1824, Lord Amherst began the annexation of Burma (now Myanmar).

Many British merchants had become wealthy by exporting enslaved Black captives from western Africa to the Caribbean region and the United States. Enslaved people were subjected to cruel conditions. A strong antislavery movement developed in the United Kingdom, led by William Wilberforce, a statesman and orator. In 1807, Parliament suppressed the slave trade. In 1833, Parliament abolished slavery throughout the British Empire, nearly 30 years before the American Civil War.

Beginnings of the labor movement.

The continuing Industrial Revolution brought many economic and other changes to the United Kingdom. By 1830, Britain was changing from an agricultural to an industrial society. Rapid industrial growth made Britain powerful. Britain’s population increased. Improvements in farming made it possible to clothe and feed the rapidly rising population.

The Industrial Revolution raised Britain’s wealth and living standards considerably. But the rapid changes also had serious social consequences. Many poor people lived and worked in appalling conditions. When industrialists began to use machinery and steam power, they also started to establish factories.

Many laborers who had once worked at home began to work in cotton mills, ironworks, and pottery workshops in such factory towns as Birmingham, Glasgow, and Manchester. In early factories, men, women, and children worked long hours in dangerous or unhealthy environments for low wages. People who had often been able to plan their own work and time as farmers or craftspeople had to adjust to strict timetables and regulations in the factories. The move from countryside to industrial towns often meant leaving behind family, friends, and familiar traditions. Since the Middle Ages, large cities like London had been crowded and unsanitary. But now far more people than ever before crowded into cities. Housing, sanitation, street lighting, and water supplies were inadequate.

The use of machines forced many people out of work. In the early 1800’s, gangs of Luddites wrecked the machines that they claimed had robbed them of their jobs. The Luddites received their name from their mythical leader, Ned Ludd. They believed that the introduction of new machines in the early 1800’s had caused unemployment and lowered the workers’ standard of living. See Luddites.

Some workers formed trade unions as a means of opposing their masters. Trade unions were groups of workers of the same trade joined together to protect and promote their interests. However, trade unions were forbidden by Combination Acts that remained in force until 1824. Despite the repeal of these acts, six Dorset farmworkers who were trade unionists were convicted in 1834 of administering an unlawful oath to each other. These men, known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, were transported (deported) to Australia (see Tolpuddle martyrs).

Social and political reforms.

For hundreds of years, convicted criminals in Europe and elsewhere had suffered terrible punishments. In Britain, these included hanging for many offenses or being locked in the stocks or pillory. The stocks and pillory were wooden frames with holes cut in them that stood in the town square. In a pillory, the holes held the arms and head of the victim. In the stocks, the holes held the victim’s legs, and sometimes arms. In the 1820’s, the British statesman Sir Robert Peel reformed the penal code and abolished the death penalty for many crimes. In 1829, he founded the London Metropolitan Police Force. See Peel, Sir Robert.

An economic depression hit the United Kingdom in 1815 after war with France. The economic downturn brought demands for radical social reform. Government troops brutally suppressed a reform meeting held at St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, in 1819. Some people died, and the incident was called Peterloo. It was named after the Battle of Waterloo, the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815. See Peterloo.

In 1829, Parliament passed a Catholic Emancipation Act, which freed Roman Catholics from many of the restrictions that they had lived under since the 1600’s. In 1830, Earl Grey led a Whig government into office and began pushing through Parliament a measure to modernize the electoral system.

By 1830, the British electoral system was out of date. Few men had the right to vote. Various local customs, rather than national law, determined who had voting rights in different counties and boroughs (towns). Some members of Parliament represented rotten boroughs, towns that over time had become greatly reduced in population, in some cases to only a few households. Others represented pocket boroughs, where one landowner controlled the votes. Few of the industrial towns in northern England and the Midlands were parliamentary boroughs. Many of these towns had grown quickly since the start of the Industrial Revolution, but parliamentary representation had not changed to reflect this growth. Manchester, for example, had no member of Parliament, because it was not a borough.

The Reform Act of 1832 passed after a great struggle. Under the act, many middle-class men received the vote. The act abolished many rotten and pocket boroughs and reduced the number of members for other boroughs.

The Municipal Corporation Act of 1835 set up elected town councils led by a mayor. The act gave boroughs the authority to raise local taxes to provide such service as street lights and police.

The Romantic movement

was a major new trend in the arts in the early 1800’s. The Romantics sought to express the individual’s innermost beliefs, feelings, and emotions. Thomas Lawrence painted portraits in the Romantic style, using bold lighting effects and deep shadows to produce an emotional, imaginative style. Romanticism also influenced the landscape artists John Constable and J. M. W. Turner. Poets of the Romantic period included Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth. William Blake was both an artist and a poet. Novelists included Jane Austen, author of such novels as Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813), and the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, author of the historical novels called the Waverley series (1814-1832). See Romanticism.

The Victorian Age (1840’s-about 1900)

In 1837, an 18-year-old woman named Victoria became queen. She reigned for 63 years, until 1901. This period is called the Victorian Age. During this period, the British Empire reached its height. It included about a quarter of the world’s land and about a quarter of the world’s population. Wealth poured into the United Kingdom from its colonies. British industry continued to expand, and the country was called the workshop of the world. Railways and canals covered the United Kingdom, and telephone and telegraph lines linked the big cities. Literature and science flourished.

Victoria’s reign can be divided into three parts. In 1840, she married a cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, with whom she fell passionately in love. The early, glorious part of her reign lasted from 1840 until 1861. During this period, Victoria and Prince Albert represented all that was progressive and dynamic. The representative event of the first part of Victoria’s reign was the Great Exhibition of 1851, which displayed triumphantly the wealth, power, and scientific glory of the British Empire. In 1861, Albert died suddenly. The second stage of Victoria’s reign lasted for about 25 years and was marked by grief, mourning, and withdrawal from the world. This phase is marked by the building of Balmoral, the royal palace in the remotest part of the Scottish Highlands where the queen tried in vain to escape from the world. The third stage of Victoria’s reign was a decade or more of mellow old age. This phase is marked by the great Diamond Jubilee celebrations of 1897. At this time, the British geared up for their first great war to defend the British Empire from disintegration, the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

Chartism.

Many men who did not get the vote in 1832 resented the Reform Act and worked to change it. They drew up a charter demanding votes for all men. They demanded the abolition of the rule that members of Parliament must be property owners and called for the creation of electoral districts of roughly equal populations. Finally, they called for annual elections to Parliament. Members of the movement became known as chartists. The chartists held many demonstrations throughout the United Kingdom. A final, sensational demonstration in 1848 failed. But all their demands—except for annually elected parliaments—have since been granted. See Chartism.

Further parliamentary reform came later in the 1800’s, and more people won the right to vote. The Reform Act of 1867 extended the vote to many working men in the towns and owners of small farms. The Reform Act of 1884 gave the vote to many agricultural laborers. Both those acts also redistributed parliamentary seats.

Social conditions improve.

In the mid-1800’s, the continuing growth of the new industrial towns caused serious problems of health, housing, sanitation, and local administration. Many townspeople lived in crowded, badly built houses. Many died from disease. Few had suitable water supplies or drainage. Factory working hours remained long, and wages remained low. Few safety precautions existed, and employers often exploited workers, including women and children. Many farmworkers earned too little to feed their families.

Many reformers, notably the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, worked to improve conditions for poor people. Beginning in 1833, a series of Factory Acts reduced working hours for women and children, improved working conditions, and appointed factory inspectors. The Mines Act of 1842 forbade underground employment of women and girls and of boys under 10 years old.

In the mid-1800’s, conditions for most people in the United Kingdom began to improve. The Great Exhibition, held in 1851, symbolized growing prosperity. Wages improved, and various factory acts reduced working hours. The music hall flourished as a popular form of entertainment, and annual seaside holidays became common. The Artisans’ Dwellings Act of 1875 enabled town councils to destroy slums and erect new houses. City councils began to provide baths, libraries, lighting, parks, transportation, and water. After 1888, county councils began similar improvements.

The coming of the railroads.

In the 1830’s, the United Kingdom had more than 120,000 miles (about 193,000 kilometers) of roads, including about 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) of reasonably good turnpikes, and about 3,000 coach services in operation. At the same time, the United Kingdom had a system of canals covering more than 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers). These waterways enabled inland towns, such as Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent, to export manufactured goods and to obtain food and raw materials. But canal barges were slow.

A new form of transport, railroads, soon began to rival coaches and canals. By 1814, the British inventors John Blenkinsop, William Hedley, and Richard Trevithick had each designed a locomotive. The railroad engineer George Stephenson and his son Robert built a prizewinning locomotive called the Rocket. In 1830, it became the first locomotive of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

Railroads developed rapidly. Engineers constructed the early lines in industrial areas, mainly to carry freight. They later built passenger lines. In the 1840’s, the United Kingdom’s railroads increased from about 1,850 miles (2,980 kilometers) to over 6,000 miles (9,700 kilometers).

Other developments in transportation.

Engineers also used steam engines to power ships. In 1802, the British engineer William Symington built and tested a steamboat on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Early steamers could not compete with fast sailing ships. But the use of iron or steel for the hulls of vessels and the invention of the screw propeller and steam turbine caused ocean-going steamships gradually to replace sailing ships in the late 1800’s.

In 1861, the first tramways (tracks for horse-drawn streetcars) opened in London. Two years later, engineers opened the first underground railway. In 1890, the world’s first electrically driven underground railroad opened in London. Regular service by electric trams in London began in 1901. About 1885, J. K. Starley, an English bicycle manufacturer, produced the first commercially successful safety bicycle. These bicycles had wheels of equal size and a chain-and-sprocket system. They were safer and easier to ride than earlier bicycles. By 1900, many people rode bikes.

German inventors had developed the car in the 1880’s. London’s first motor buses appeared just before 1900, and motor taxi companies began operating a few years later. By 1914, the United Kingdom had about 132,000 privately owned cars.

Developments in communication.

In 1837, a retired British schoolteacher named Rowland Hill wrote a pamphlet titled Post Office Reform. In it, he called for a uniform Penny Post, which would charge cheap, uniform postage rates, regardless of distance. Hill also proposed that postage should be paid in advance by the sender, with adhesive stamps to indicate payment. The British Post Office issued the first postage stamps in 1840 and later adopted many of Hill’s other ideas. Following the introduction of the Penny Post, the British system became the model for postal systems around the world. These reforms revolutionized the ability of ordinary people to contact each other by letter. See Postal services (The creation of the Penny Post).

Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotsman who settled in the United States in 1871, created an early form of the telephone in 1875. In 1876, Bell demonstrated its use in a two-way long-distance telephone conversation with his assistant, Thomas Watson, between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The telephone soon grew in popularity, and the United Kingdom’s first telephone exchange opened in 1879.

Industrial growth continues.

The industrial growth that had begun during the Industrial Revolution continued steadily during the Victorian Age. The United Kingdom changed from mainly an agricultural nation to mainly an industrial one. As British industry grew, so did the population. By 1851, the population of the United Kingdom was nearly 28 million. By 1901, it was nearly 42 million.

Industrial activity centered in cities, and people moved to cities in record numbers. In 1851, about half the United Kingdom’s people lived in urban areas. By 1901, nearly three-quarters did. The industrial middle classes replaced the landed aristocracy in importance. Drab brick towns, smoking factories, and ugly slag heaps covered large areas of the United Kingdom.

Free trade.

Although industry prospered, many factory laborers and farmworkers lived in poverty. Farmers had poor harvests in the mid-1800’s, and a depression swept across the United Kingdom. Many people blamed their troubles on the Corn Laws, which taxed imports of grain (called corn in the United Kingdom). The taxes protected landowners by helping keep foreign grain out of the United Kingdom. But the taxes also raised the price of bread. See Corn Laws.

In 1841, Sir Robert Peel, a Tory, became prime minister. Like many other government leaders, Peel came to believe that restrictions on trade hurt the economy. He ended all export duties and ended or reduced import duties on hundreds of items. But the Corn Laws remained. Peel did not repeal these laws because many members of his party strongly favored them. Then, in 1845 and 1846, the potato crop failed in Ireland. This was the start of what is known as the Great Irish Famine (1845-1850) , during which 1 million of the 8 million inhabitants of Ireland died and millions more left Ireland (see Great Irish Famine.) In addition, the English had a bad wheat harvest. Peel felt he had to repeal the Corn Laws and let foreign wheat come into the United Kingdom. In 1846, he did so—and split his party and ended his career. But the United Kingdom prospered under free trade.

In 1844, a group called the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers opened a cooperative, a business owned by the people who used its services. The cooperative movement soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom. Cooperative buying and selling cut living costs.

Unions gain strength.

Repression of trade unions continued until the middle of the Victorian period. But in 1851, skilled technicians formed a union called the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. This union became large and successful, and other skilled workers established similar unions. Several trade unions associated to form the Trades Union Congress in 1868. The Trade Union Act of 1871 protected union funds. In 1875, Parliament legalized peaceful picketing during strikes. The Trade Disputes Act of 1906 relieved unions of legal responsibility for damage caused by strikes.

Palmerston.

The dominant statesman in British foreign policy during the mid-1800’s was Viscount Palmerston. He served as foreign minister during most of the period from 1830 to 1851 and as home secretary from 1852 to 1855. He was prime minister from 1855 to 1858 and from 1859 to 1865. Palmerston cared mostly about defending the United Kingdom’s colonies, stopping Russian expansion, and restoring good relations with France while still preventing the expansion of French power. During the 1830’s, he supported Belgium in its revolt against the Netherlands. In the 1840’s, he forced China to open its ports to British trade and acquired Hong Kong. See Palmerston, Viscount.

From 1854 to 1856, the United Kingdom and France fought Russia in the Crimean War, which had begun in 1853 between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The United Kingdom feared that Russia would seize Ottoman territory bordering the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea and threaten British connections with the Middle East and India. During the war, Florence Nightingale, an English nurse, tended sick and wounded people. Her work revolutionized nursing care.

Loosening control over Canada and Australia.

In Canada, jealousies and suspicions between the two provinces, Upper and Lower Canada, led to revolts in both provinces in 1837. Lord Durham, the British government’s investigator, recommended that Canada should be reunited and made self-governing. The British North America Act of 1867 made Canada the first dominion within the British Empire. A dominion is a self-governing member of the empire that maintains its allegiance to the Crown. See British North America Act.

In Australia, sheep farmers moved into the interior of the country. The discovery of gold in 1851 led to a gold rush that attracted thousands of immigrants to Victoria and New South Wales. In 1901, the country became the Commonwealth of Australia.

In 1840, New Zealand became part of the British Empire. There, too, gold attracted immigrants, and New Zealand prospered as a farming country. It became a dominion in 1907.

Expansion in India and Africa.

In India, sepoys (soldiers) in the army of the British trading company the East India Company rebelled in 1857. The British introduced rifle cartridges that the sepoys thought were greased with cow and hog fat. Soldiers had to bite the cartridges open before loading them into rifles. The religious beliefs of the Hindu sepoys forbade them to eat beef, and the Muslim sepoys could not eat pork. The revolt began after British officers imprisoned sepoys for refusing to use the cartridges. British forces suppressed the revolt. But the United Kingdom abolished the rule of the East India Company and brought India directly under the rule of the Crown. Queen Victoria became empress of India in 1877. See Indian Rebellion.

In southern Africa, the United Kingdom had won the Cape Colony from the Dutch by 1815. Many British emigrants had settled there and in Natal. Many of South Africa’s Dutch settlers, called Boers, moved into the interior. The largest such movement had been the Great Trek of 1836. The Boers founded two independent republics, the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State. In 1877, the British annexed the Transvaal, but the Boers won it back in the Anglo-Boer War of 1880-1881.

In 1886, a gold rush in the Transvaal attracted many British prospectors. The Boers taxed them heavily and denied them political rights. Their grievances led to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. The United Kingdom defeated the Boers and annexed the two republics. In 1910, the four territories of southern Africa formed the Union of South Africa. See Anglo-Boer Wars.

Gladstone and Disraeli.

From 1830 to 1841, with one short break, the Whigs led the government. In 1834, the Tory politician Robert Peel issued a public statement called the Tamworth Manifesto. This statement said that the Tory Party should combine reform with respect for tradition. The Tories began to call themselves Conservatives. In 1841, they won power under Peel’s leadership.

In 1865, a strong two-party system was born from a battle between two political giants—William Gladstone, a Liberal, and Benjamin Disraeli, a Conservative. Their brilliant debates in Parliament made them the centers of political storms. Gladstone and Disraeli alternated as prime minister from 1868 to 1885. Their rivalry began over the Reform Act of 1867.

In 1866, Gladstone introduced a reform bill to give more people the right to vote. His bill was defeated. Disraeli knew that a bill had to be passed because of public pressure. In 1867, he introduced his own bill, which Parliament passed. The Reform Act of 1867 nearly doubled the number of voters by giving the vote to many small farmers and city workers. Disraeli hoped the new voters would gratefully elect Conservatives in the next election. Instead, they voted overwhelmingly in 1868 for Liberals. Gladstone became prime minister.

Gladstone’s first term, which lasted until 1874, brought some of the most liberal reforms of the 1800’s. Under the Irish Church Act of 1869, the Irish no longer had to pay taxes to the Church of England, which had few Irish members. The Elementary Education Act of 1870 set up locally elected school boards, which could require children to attend school until the age of 13. In 1870, the government improved the civil service system by making tests the basis for employment. Government officials could no longer simply give civil service jobs to friends or relatives. In 1872, the secret ballot was introduced. Gladstone angered various groups with each of these reforms and lost the election of 1874.

Disraeli also advocated social reforms to help the working class. But his party, which included many wealthy people, supported only minor reforms. The 1880 election brought the Liberals—and Gladstone—back to power. Disraeli died the next year

Gladstone’s second term as prime minister lasted until 1885. It produced the Reform Act of 1884, which gave the vote to almost all adult males. Gladstone served twice more as prime minister—in 1886 and from 1892 to 1894. During his third and fourth terms, his support of home rule (self-government) for Ireland shattered his party and led to its defeat. See Disraeli, Benjamin; Gladstone, William Ewart.

The Irish question.

From 1845 to 1850, a terrible famine struck Ireland and reduced the Irish population by at least a quarter. Many people starved or emigrated. The British government’s response to the famine left the Irish people with bitter grievances, and Gladstone decided to reform Irish administration. Parliament passed acts to end the special status of the Protestant Church of Ireland and to protect farmers against eviction by landlords. But these measures did not satisfy the Irish people, and Gladstone tried to give Ireland self-government. Parliament rejected his two Irish Home Rule Bills in 1886 and 1893. But Ireland’s desire for self-government, voiced by a large Irish Nationalist Party in the House of Commons, remained strong. The Irish question split the Liberal Party into Gladstonian Liberals, who supported home rule, and Liberal Unionists, who opposed it. See Ireland, History of.

Victorian art and literature.

Many architects of the Victorian Age sought to re-create past architectural styles, including the Gothic style of the Middle Ages and the Classical style of ancient Greece and Rome. Popular Victorian painters, including Frederick Leighton and Sir Edwin Landseer, concentrated on historical scenes and sentimental views of everyday life. A group of English painters called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood thought that pictures should be both beautiful and instructive.

Early Victorian literature included some of the greatest and most popular novels ever written, including those of Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Charles Kingsley, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Anthony Trollope. Later Victorian writers, including Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells, lived on into the 1900’s. Poets of the period included Matthew Arnold; Robert Browning; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Algernon Charles Swinburne; and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

New ideas

caused discussion and controversy in the late 1800’s. The naturalist Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, written in 1859, maintained that all living things developed from a few simple forms of life through a series of physical changes in a process called evolution. Thomas Hughes, Charles Kingsley, and other authors promoted a new religious and political movement called Christian Socialism. The Christian Socialists urged the Church of England to take an active part in easing social problems.

The growth of education

in the United Kingdom during the Victorian Age aided the flourishing literary and intellectual activity. New universities were founded in Durham, London, and several industrial towns. A state system of education began with the Elementary Education Act of 1870. The influence of Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School, led to the reform and growth of schools (see Rugby School). The Education Act of 1902 allowed local authorities to found secondary schools. With the spread of general education, a need arose for popular mass-circulation newspapers. The first such paper, London’s Daily Mail, began publication in 1896. See Arnold, Thomas; Forster, William Edward.

A manufacturing leader.

British industry continued to expand. Coal output was more than 20 times greater at the end of the 1800’s than it had been at the start of the century, and iron production was more than 30 times greater. The United Kingdom became the world’s leading manufacturing nation. It retained its industrial lead through the skill of its inventors. The British engineer Henry Bessemer discovered a less costly way of making steel, which is much stronger and more durable than iron, and steel replaced iron in engineering, railways, and shipbuilding (see Bessemer, Sir Henry). Between 1838 and 1844, the first electric telegraph lines were installed along the tracks of the Great Western Railway from Paddington to Slough. After several failed attempts, British engineers achieved a permanent telegraph link across the Atlantic Ocean in 1866. In 1884, Charles Parsons made the first steam-turbine engine and built the first steam-powered steamship, Turbinia, in 1897. In the mid-1820’s, Patrick Bell, a Scottish-born clergyman and inventor, invented a reaping machine for harvesting grain.

Near the end of the 1800’s, the United Kingdom faced growing competition overseas. Such industrialized countries as France, Germany, and the United States protected their own manufactured goods against British goods by imposing high tariffs (taxes on imports). The United States and Germany overtook the United Kingdom in steel production. The United Kingdom’s share of world exports declined, although the coal, machinery, and ship industries in particular continued to prosper. The United Kingdom suffered an industrial slump between 1875 and 1896.

But British businessmen had invested money in the empire, South America, and other parts of the world. British companies owned overseas factories, farms, mines, and railways. The earnings of British shipping and insurance companies, and the profits of overseas investments, provided a valuable income.

A changing place in the world (1900’s)

In the first half of the 1900’s, the United Kingdom fought in two world wars that considerably changed its international influence and status. Many British colonies before 1945 became independent countries as the British Empire developed into the Commonwealth of Nations. In 1906, the United Kingdom was the world’s richest and most powerful nation. But the Soviet Union and the United States, which had vast resources of people and materials, eventually overtook the United Kingdom.

Liberal reforms.

In 1906, the Liberal Party won a great election victory. The Liberals then put through a sweeping reform program to aid the working class. In 1909, the Liberals introduced a budget calling for sharply increased taxes. The House of Lords rejected the budget. A political struggle followed over the veto power of the Lords. The Parliament Act of 1911 limited the power of the House of Lords. Under the Parliament Act, the Lords could delay—but not veto—bills passed by the House of Commons. The act also called for general elections every five years instead of every seven.

The Liberals passed more social reforms. In 1911, the Shops Act enforced early closing once a week. By another act, members of Parliament began to receive payment for their services. Previously, the members were unpaid, and so only wealthy people could afford to serve in Parliament. A National Insurance Act provided health insurance for all low-paid workers and unemployment insurance for people in some jobs.

Widening alliances.

In the late 1800’s, the United Kingdom, with its vast empire, relied on the Navy for defense and followed a foreign policy of isolation. But with the early 1900’s came a need for alliances. In 1902, the United Kingdom allied with Japan to meet a possible Russian attack on India. In 1904, the United Kingdom and France, both fearing German aggression, signed a treaty called the Entente Cordiale. In 1907, this became the Triple Entente, when France’s ally Russia joined. The Entente was opposed by the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy.

World War I

began in 1914. The Allies—the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and other countries—fought the Central Powers—Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. The war was caused chiefly by political and economic rivalry among the various nations. Part of this rivalry was between the United Kingdom and Germany. German industry was growing rapidly, and the United Kingdom feared that German goods would flood the world market. Germany also had built a powerful navy.

The United Kingdom entered the war on Aug. 4, 1914, after German troops invaded neutral Belgium on their way to attack France. The fighting lasted until 1918, when the Allies finally defeated Germany. See World War I.

David Lloyd George, a Liberal, served as prime minister during the second half of the war. He helped write the Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended the war with Germany. The treaty set up the League of Nations, a forerunner of the United Nations, and gave the United Kingdom control over German colonies in Africa. The Treaty of Sèvres, signed with the Ottoman Empire, gave the United Kingdom control over some of the Ottomans’ possessions in the Middle East. See Lloyd George, David.

Economic problems.

The war had a crippling effect on the United Kingdom. About 750,000 members of the British armed forces died. German submarines sank more than 3,000 British ships. The war also created severe economic problems for the United Kingdom and shook its position as a world power.

For a short time after World War I, British industry prospered because of the worldwide shortage of manufactured goods. But a severe economic slump began in 1920, and unemployment reached 2 million workers in 1921. The coal industry suffered a decline, and mine owners decided to reduce the workers’ wages to save money. Two of the United Kingdom’s best customers before the war—Germany and Russia—could not afford its goods after the war. In addition, the United States and Japan had taken much of the United Kingdom’s export business. The decline in foreign trade added to the economic hardship.

British workers held a General Strike in 1926. Miners refused to work for the reduced wages. The Trades Union Congress, the ruling body of British unions, supported the miners’ strike. In a show of support, workers from the railroad, shipping, printing, electricity, iron, steel, and chemical companies joined the strike. The government organized police and soldiers to keep order, and civilian volunteers replaced many vital workers. After nine days, the Trades Union Congress called off the strike. The miners remained on strike several months longer but finally had to accept the wage cuts. See Trades Union Congress (TUC).

Irish troubles.

In 1910, the Liberal government needed to form a coalition with the Irish Nationalist Party to maintain a Liberal majority in the House of Commons. The leader of the Irish Nationalist Party was John Redmond, who demanded self-government for Ireland. The House of Commons passed a third Irish Home Rule Bill, but the Lords twice rejected the bill in 1913. Under the Parliament Act, the Lords could not permanently reject the bill, and the government could pass the bill in 1914.

While Parliament delayed, however, the Irish situation became dangerous. Some Protestants in Ulster, a large province in northern Ireland, formed an armed resistance to the movement for an independent Ireland. The southern Irish also began to arm themselves. In 1914, the British government had to assure British Protestant officers stationed at the Curragh, near Dublin, that they would not have to fight against Protestants in Ulster. A conference of Conservative, Liberal, and Irish leaders failed to agree on a solution. Civil war in Ireland seemed inevitable. Then World War I began, and the government shelved the Home Rule Bill.

In 1916, a revolt called the Easter Rising broke out in Dublin. British soldiers stopped it, and the leaders were executed. Sinn Fein, a new party that supported Irish independence from the United Kingdom, won a general election in Ireland in 1918. During 1919, it set up its own parliament, its own law courts, and an army. Supporters of independence attacked police officers and British soldiers. In response, the British government sent in the Black and Tans, a large force of auxiliary police recruited from former soldiers (see Black and Tans). The two sides ruthlessly fought each other. In 1921, King George V appealed for peace. Prime Minister David Lloyd George proposed that southern Ireland should become the Irish Free State, with dominion status in the empire. The Irish delegates agreed and signed a treaty ending the war with the British. Six counties in the province of Ulster remained part of the British kingdom, which was officially renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The northern Irish set up a local parliament at Belfast.

Sinn Fein rejected the treaty with the United Kingdom, and civil war followed in Ireland. The civil war ended in 1923 with victory for the party favoring the treaty. See Ireland, History of; Irish Civil War.

The rise of the Labour Party.

In 1924, a new party, the Labour Party, came to power under James Ramsay MacDonald. The party represented socialist societies and workers’ groups. It had begun to develop in the late 1800’s and gathered strength through the years. While the Labour Party grew stronger, the Liberal Party declined. Many voters could see little difference between Conservatives and Liberals. They saw the Labour Party, with its socialist aims, as an alternative to the Conservative Party. The Labour Party held office for less than a year. It lacked a majority in the House of Commons and needed the Liberal Party’s support. The Liberals soon withdrew their support. The Conservatives, under Stanley Baldwin, then held control of the government until 1929.

In the 1929 elections, the Labour Party became the largest party for the first time. Ramsay MacDonald returned as prime minister. See Labour Party.

The Great Depression,

a worldwide economic slump, began in 1929. The Depression left many people jobless and penniless. In 1931, MacDonald formed a government of Labour, Conservative, and Liberal leaders to deal with the emergency. The government increased taxes, abandoned free trade, and cut its own spending. But the world economic situation deteriorated, and the United Kingdom could not escape the effects of the Great Depression. By 1932, the United Kingdom had about 3 million people unemployed. The industrial districts of northern England, Scotland, and South Wales were especially hard hit, with thousands of people out of work in each area.

“Peace in our time.”

In the depth of the Depression, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party won control of Germany. Germany began to rearm, but few leaders in the United Kingdom, or elsewhere, saw the danger.

The United Kingdom faced an unusual problem at home. King George V died in 1936, and his oldest son became King Edward VIII. Edward wanted to marry an American divorcee, Wallis Warfield Simpson. The government, the Church of England, and many British people objected. Edward then gave up the throne to marry “the woman I love.” His brother became King George VI.

Neville Chamberlain, a Conservative, became prime minister in 1937. Chamberlain thought he could deal with Hitler. In 1938, Hitler seized Austria and then demanded part of Czechoslovakia (now two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia). Chamberlain and Premier Edouard Daladier of France flew to Munich, Germany, to confer with Hitler. They gave in to Hitler’s demands after the German dictator said he would seek no more territory (see Munich Agreement). Chamberlain returned to the United Kingdom and said: “I believe it is peace in our time.” But Chamberlain met sharp attacks in the House of Commons. Winston Churchill, a Conservative, called the Munich Agreement “a disaster of the first magnitude.”

World War II.

In March 1939, Germany seized the rest of Czechoslovakia. On September 1, Germany invaded Poland, and World War II began. Two days later, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany. In April 1940, German troops invaded Denmark and Norway. On May 10, Germany attacked Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The same day, Chamberlain resigned and Churchill became prime minister.

Churchill told the British people he had nothing to offer but “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” to win “victory at all costs.” Germany conquered France in June, and the United Kingdom stood alone against the Nazi war machine.

The United Kingdom prepared for invasion, and Churchill urged his people to make this “their finest hour.” He inspired them to heights of courage, unity, and sacrifice. Hundreds of German planes bombed the United Kingdom nightly. German submarines tried to cut the United Kingdom’s lifeline by torpedoing ships bringing supplies to the island country. Severe rationing limited each person’s share of food, clothing, coal, and oil. The British refused to be beaten, and Hitler gave up his invasion plans. See Blitz, The.

In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In December, Japan attacked the United States fleet in Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, and the United States entered the war. The United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the other Allies finally defeated Germany and Japan in 1945. Near the end of the war, the United Kingdom helped establish the United Nations.

About 360,000 British servicemen, servicewomen, and civilians died in the war. Great sections of London and other cities had been destroyed by bombs. The war had shattered the economy, and the United Kingdom had piled up huge debts. The United States and the Soviet Union came out of the war as the world’s most powerful nations.

The welfare state.

The Labour Party won a landslide victory in 1945. The party had campaigned on a socialist program. Clement Attlee became prime minister, and the Labour Party stayed in power until 1951. During those six years, the United Kingdom became a welfare state. The nation’s social security system was expanded to provide welfare for the people “from the cradle to the grave.” The Labour government also began to nationalize industry by putting private businesses under public control. The nationalized industries included the Bank of England, the coal mines, the iron and steel industry, the railroads, and the trucking industry.

Although the Labour government struggled to restore the economy, conditions improved little. Rationing and other wartime controls continued. The government borrowed heavily from the United States.

Letting go of the empire.

World War II sealed the fate of the British Empire, though the United Kingdom had begun loosening control over its empire earlier. In 1931, the United Kingdom granted independence within the empire to Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and South Africa. These countries became the first members of the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of countries and overseas territories that succeeded the empire. See Commonwealth of Nations.

After World War II, the peoples of Africa and Asia increased their demands for independence. The United Kingdom could no longer keep control of its colonies. In 1947, India and Pakistan became independent nations within the Commonwealth. In 1948, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) became an independent Commonwealth country. In that same year, Burma (now Myanmar) achieved independence—and left the Commonwealth. In 1949, the Irish Free State declared itself the independent Republic of Ireland and also left the Commonwealth. That same year, Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador) became a province of Canada.

South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth from 1961 to 1994, because the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth countries had criticized its racial policies. Although Black people made up a majority of the population in South Africa, white people controlled the government. Also, the South African government had an official policy of racial segregation called apartheid. South Africa rejoined the Commonwealth when it ended its apartheid and gave Black citizens a full part in government.

Since the early 1950’s, many more British possessions have become independent nations. They include Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana, Kenya, Malaysia, Malta, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uganda.

In 1965, Rhodesia declared its independence from the United Kingdom. There, as in South Africa, white people controlled the government even though Black people made up a majority of the population. The United Kingdom had refused to grant Rhodesia independence until Black citizens were given a greater voice in the government. In 1980, after a long struggle for more power, Black Rhodesians gained control of the government, and the United Kingdom recognized Rhodesia’s independence. Rhodesia’s name was changed to Zimbabwe. For details, see Zimbabwe (History).

The Suez crisis.

In July 1956, Egypt seized the Suez Canal, which was owned mainly by the British and French. In October, Israel invaded Egypt, its enemy. The United Kingdom and France then attacked Egypt in an attempt to retake the canal. The attempt did not succeed. Pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations forced the United Kingdom, France, and Israel to withdraw from Egypt. Loading the player...
Suez Canal crisis

A Conservative government had returned to power in 1951 under Winston Churchill. Churchill retired in 1955, and Sir Anthony Eden succeeded him as prime minister. Eden drew harsh criticism for his decision that the United Kingdom should join France in trying to seize the Suez Canal in 1956. He resigned in 1957 and was succeeded by Harold Macmillan. See Suez Canal; Suez crisis.

European unity.

While the United Kingdom disbanded its empire during the postwar years, other nations of Western Europe joined together in various economic and political organizations. The United Kingdom was reluctant to join them. Throughout most of history, it had preferred to stay out of European affairs—except to keep the balance of power in Europe. By joining the new organizations, the United Kingdom feared it might lose some of its independence and would also be turning its back on the Commonwealth.

In the years after World War II, British foreign policy was closely allied with that of the United States. The United Kingdom joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and fought in the Korean War (1950-1953).

In the early 1960’s, the United Kingdom applied for membership in the European Economic Community. By joining the EEC, Prime Minister Macmillan hoped the United Kingdom would expand its export trade. But in 1963, the EEC rejected the United Kingdom’s application, largely because of opposition from French President Charles de Gaulle. The rejection was a defeat for Macmillan. That year, the government was shaken by a scandal involving the secretary for war, John Profumo, who was having an affair with a prostitute who was also involved with a Russian spy. The 1964 election brought the Labour Party back to power under Harold Wilson.

Mounting economic problems

faced Wilson. The United Kingdom was importing far more goods than it was exporting, and its industrial growth rate was too slow. The United Kingdom’s financial reserves shrank, and the nation had to borrow more and more money from other countries and international agencies. In 1966, the government began an austerity program by raising taxes and putting a ceiling on wages and prices.

The EEC merged with the European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom in 1967 and became known as the European Community (EC). That year, the United Kingdom was again rejected for membership in the EC. The government devalued the pound in response to the serious economic situation.

In the 1970 elections, the Conservative Party regained control of the government. Edward Heath became prime minister. In 1973, the United Kingdom finally joined the EC. But continuing inflation, fuel shortages, strikes, and other matters caused serious problems for the government. Elections in 1974 brought the Labour Party back to power, and Harold Wilson again became prime minister. Wilson retired in 1976. James Callaghan succeeded him as prime minister and Labour Party leader

Long-standing conflicts

between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland became a serious problem for the United Kingdom during the late 1960’s and the 1970’s. In 1969, the United Kingdom began sending troops to Northern Ireland to try to stop riots there. But the violence continued. The unstable situation caused a series of political crises in Northern Ireland during the 1970’s. The United Kingdom established direct rule over the region, while attempts were made to form a stable government in which Catholics and Protestants shared power. See Northern Ireland (History).

Many people in Scotland and some in Wales demanded complete independence from the United Kingdom. Many others believed Scotland and Wales should have their own legislatures. Still others favored no changes in the relations between Scotland and Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. In 1979, the people of Scotland and Wales voted on whether they should have their own legislatures. The voters in both areas failed to approve the establishment of legislatures.

Margaret Thatcher.

Elections in 1979 returned the Conservatives to power. Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher replaced Callaghan as prime minister. She became the first woman ever to hold the office. She served as prime minister for almost 12 years, longer than any other person for almost 200 years. See Thatcher, Margaret.

As prime minister, Thatcher worked to reduce government involvement in the economy. For example, the government sold its interests in many industries to private citizens and businesses. It also sold thousands of public-housing units to their tenants, promoting home ownership. In addition, direct taxes were reduced.

In 1982, Thatcher won praise for her decisive handling of a conflict with Argentina. Since 1833, the United Kingdom has ruled the Falkland Islands, which lie about 320 miles (515 kilometers) east of the southern coast of Argentina. But Argentina has long claimed ownership of the islands. In April 1982, Argentine troops invaded and occupied the Falklands. The United Kingdom then sent troops, ships, and planes. British and Argentine forces fought air, sea, and land battles for control of the islands. The Argentine forces surrendered to the United Kingdom in June 1982. See Falklands War.

In 1985, Thatcher and Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald of Ireland signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which established an advisory conference for Northern Ireland. The conference, consisting of officials of the United Kingdom and Ireland, gave Ireland an advisory role in Northern Ireland’s government. See Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Thatcher resigned as Conservative Party leader and prime minister in 1990. She had been under growing pressure from her own party to do so. Her party was divided over two issues—Thatcher’s reluctance to seek further economic and political union with the European Community and her support of a new household tax.

John Major succeeded Thatcher as party leader and prime minister. He had been serving as chancellor of the exchequer, which involves managing the economy. As prime minister, Major abandoned the household tax. In addition, he sent British troops to fight as part of a U.S.-led coalition against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War of 1991 (see Persian Gulf War of 1991).

Major also negotiated with the European Community for closer union. In 1993, the EC countries formed the European Union (EU) to increase their economic and political cooperation. Many people began to accuse Major of failing to protect British interests as he sought closer ties with the EU. Disagreements over the EU caused divisions within the Conservative Party and weakened Major’s government. See European Union (EU).

Devolution.

In 1997 elections, the Labour Party defeated the Conservatives by a landslide. Labour leader Tony Blair became prime minister. He proposed plans to give Scotland and Wales their own legislatures. In referendums (direct votes) in 1997, voters in Scotland and Wales approved the plans. The new legislative bodies, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales, met for the first time in 1999. The government of the United Kingdom devolved (transferred) some of its powers to the governments of Scotland and Wales.

A 1998 political settlement in Northern Ireland created three new political bodies. They were (1) the Northern Ireland Assembly, a legislative assembly responsible for domestic affairs; (2) the North-South Ministerial Council, which includes representatives from the governments of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; and (3) the British-Irish Council, which addresses issues of concern to all of the United Kingdom and Ireland. All three groups began meeting in 1999. See British-Irish Council; North-South Ministerial Council.

Recent developments (2000’s)

The United Kingdom enjoyed a time of relative peace and prosperity at the beginning of the 2000’s. The nation had developed stronger ties with Europe. Devolution had granted greater sovereignty to residents of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. But world events, political polarization, and economic and public health crises presented challenges to the nation and its leaders.

Terror attacks and the Iraq War.

In elections in 2001, the Labour Party again won control of the government. Blair retained his seat as prime minister.

On Sept. 11, 2001, hundreds of British citizens died with thousands of others in terrorist attacks in the United States. In response, the United States, the United Kingdom, and many other countries launched a campaign against terrorism. The campaign included military strikes in Afghanistan, the country that served as a base for Al-Qa`ida, the terrorist group that carried out the attacks in the United States. Blair played a key role in building international support for the campaign, which worked to drive Al-Qa`ida from Afghanistan in 2002.

In March 2003, the United States attacked Iraq, launching the Iraq War. Blair supported the U.S. war effort and, despite strong public opposition at home, sent tens of thousands of British troops to take part in the fighting. The U.S.-led forces quickly took control of Iraq and ended the rule of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The British military mission lasted until April 2009. See Iraq War.

In elections in 2005, the Labour Party again won control of the government. Blair continued as prime minister. On July 7 in London, bombs on three subway trains and a bus killed over 50 people and injured about 700 more. Officials determined that four suicide bombers with ties to radical Islamists had conducted the attacks. On July 21, four more bombers attempted a similar attack in London, but their bombs failed to explode.

Northern Ireland peace process.

The 1998 political settlement in Northern Ireland brought some stability to that region in the early 2000’s. The settlement called for the disarmament of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which had sought to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. Disagreements over the status of the IRA led the United Kingdom to suspend the power-sharing government several times.

Following the Islamic terrorist attacks of July 2005, the IRA announced that it would stop using violence to achieve its goal of a united Ireland. In response, the United Kingdom began reducing the number of troops it had stationed in Northern Ireland.

The peace process in Northern Ireland developed further in May 2006, when the Northern Ireland Assembly met for the first time since it had been suspended in 2002. In January 2007, Sinn Féin members voted to cooperate with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. This decision by Sinn Féin, the Irish nationalist political party allied with the IRA, paved the way for restoring a British-Irish coalition government in the Northern Ireland Assembly. In the March 2007 parliamentary elections, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin finished first and second, respectively. The DUP had sought to maintain Northern Ireland’s union with the United Kingdom, and Sinn Féin had sought to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. DUP leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams met for the first time on March 26, 2007, and agreed to work together in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government, which began in May 2007.

In May 2007, leaders of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a Northern Ireland terrorist organization, declared that the group would end its violent campaign. Opponents of Irish nationalism formed the UVF in 1966, and the organization carried out attacks against Irish nationalists in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The British Army ended its 38-year military campaign, which became known as Operation Banner, in Northern Ireland at the end of July 2007. British troops were sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 to support Northern Ireland’s police force after clashes broke out between the mostly Protestant British unionists and the mostly Catholic Irish nationalists. British soldiers remained in the region to help combat the violence between both sides. In 2005, British unionists and Irish nationalists started to work toward more peaceful solutions to their differences, including the establishment of the power-sharing coalition in the Northern Ireland Assembly. About 5,000 British troops remained. Northern Ireland’s police force was responsible for peacekeeping and security duties.

Political changes and domestic challenges.

In June 2007, Tony Blair resigned as prime minister and leader of the Labour Party. Gordon Brown was named to replace Blair as prime minister and Labour Party leader.

In 2010, the Conservative Party won the most seats in a general election, but not an overall majority. The Conservatives created a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, and Conservative leader David Cameron became prime minister.

In 2011, violent riots erupted in several British cities. On August 4, London police killed a man during an arrest, sparking the unrest. For the next five nights, violence, looting, and arson caused widespread damage in London and other cities. Authorities blamed the violence on gang culture, government spending cuts, unemployment, and general criminal behavior. Five people were killed, several more were injured, and more than 3,000 were arrested. The riots caused about $325 million in damage.

In 2013, after many years of debate, the Scottish Parliament scheduled a referendum on Scottish independence for 2014. Following a highly publicized campaign, the Scottish people voted on September 18 to keep Scotland within the United Kingdom. Approximately 55 percent of the voters cast ballots against independence.

Britain exits the EU.

In national elections in 2015, the Conservative Party won a majority of seats in the British House of Commons, and Cameron remained as prime minister. In June 2016, British voters chose to leave the European Union in a contentious referendum nicknamed “Brexit” (British exit). Prime Minister Cameron, who opposed the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU, resigned from office in July. Theresa May, the new Conservative Party leader, replaced Cameron as prime minister. In June 2017 national elections, the Conservative Party won more seats than any other party but fell short of a majority. May’s party formed a governing agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.

May herself had not supported Brexit. However, as prime minister, she became responsible for dealing with the many complications created by the referendum. The United Kingdom began the EU withdrawal process—which was expected to take about two years—in March 2017. In April 2019, EU leaders agreed to extend the Brexit deadline to the end of October, in order to give the British government more time to reach a withdrawal agreement. The withdrawal agreement was to cover such matters as the legal status of Britons living in EU countries; Britain’s payments to the EU to disband its partnership; and border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

May’s difficulty in persuading Parliament to agree on the details of the withdrawal led her to resign as head of the Conservative Party in June 2019. May remained as prime minister until Boris Johnson was elected leader of the party the following month. In October, Johnson and EU leaders agreed to extend the Brexit deadline to Jan. 31, 2020. In December 2019 national elections, the Conservative Party beat its rival, Labour, giving Johnson a broad mandate to pursue a Brexit agreement on his party’s terms. The Scottish National Party captured 80 percent of Scottish seats in Parliament, and its leaders promised to push for a second independence referendum.

On Jan. 31, 2020, the United Kingdom officially ceased to be a member of the European Union. British citizens were no longer EU citizens, and the United Kingdom gave up its ability to influence the EU lawmaking process. The United Kingdom and European Union entered an 11-month transition period in which relations between the two entities remained largely unchanged until Jan. 1, 2021. Negotiations between UK and EU officials over matters of trade, security, and fishing rights extended into late 2020. The two sides came to an agreement on December 24. The British Parliament passed, and Johnson signed, the trade and cooperation agreement on December 30. The agreement included no tariffs or quotas, but most observers believed that new border checks and regulations would reduce trade and commerce between the European Union and the United Kingdom. The EU Parliament approved the deal in April 2021.

Public health crisis.

Beginning in 2020, the United Kingdom faced major economic and social disruptions as a result of COVID-19. The sometimes fatal respiratory disease, caused by a type of coronavirus, first emerged from China late in 2019. It soon caused major outbreaks throughout the world. The first cases in the United Kingdom were reported in late January 2020. In March, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic—that is, a global epidemic.

On March 23, Prime Minister Johnson issued a nationwide lockdown to limit the spread of the disease. He warned that without strict measures, the disease could overwhelm the capabilities of the National Health Service (NHS). He announced the closure of all nonessential businesses and cautioned that Britons should leave their homes only in extremely limited circumstances. Four days later, Johnson revealed that he had tested positive for COVID-19. His symptoms later worsened, and he was hospitalized from April 5 to April 12. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, assumed many of the prime minister’s responsibilities during Johnson’s illness.

Infection rates in the United Kingdom declined late in the spring, and authorities eased restrictions for many business and social activities. Cases sharply increased in late summer, however, and Johnson announced a new set of restrictions in September. The new policies included additional fines for attending large gatherings and for not wearing face masks where required. In November, high infection and hospitalization rates led parts of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to implement stricter lockdown rules.

The United Kingdom approved its first coronavirus vaccine in early December. The first vaccine shots were administered to Britons on December 8. In the following weeks, authorities raised alarm about a highly contagious variant, or mutation, of the virus spreading in London and in southeastern England. Johnson issued a strict lockdown for many parts of the country, causing millions of Britons to cancel holiday travel plans. Many business and social restrictions remained in effect through the early months of 2021. Higher vaccination rates led to lower infection and death rates in the spring. In early summer, however, the spread of yet another COVID-19 variant sent UK infection rates soaring, particularly among unvaccinated people.

Despite the surge in infections, England went ahead with its plans to lift most COVID-19 restrictions on so-called “Freedom Day,” July 19. Infection rates remained elevated through the end of the year and into 2022. In February, after another decline in infection rates, Johnson announced a “living with COVID” strategy. Under the new policy, residents of England were no longer required to self-isolate after receiving a positive COVID-19 test. By early 2023, about 25 million COVID-19 cases had been recorded in the United Kingdom, and more than 220,000 Britons had died of the disease.

New leadership.

In 2022, investigations suggested that Johnson had misled Parliament regarding the nature of some gatherings held in 2020 and 2021 at his residence and other locations. The gatherings violated COVID-19 social restrictions put in place by Johnson’s government, and the resulting scandal was called “Partygate.” In June 2022, Johnson survived a no-confidence vote held by Conservative members of Parliament. However, more than 40 percent of his party voted against him. Many of Johnson’s Cabinet members resigned in July after the revelation of another scandal involving a senior Conservative Party member.

On July 7, 2022, Johnson stepped down as Conservative Party leader. Liz Truss, who had served as foreign secretary in Johnson’s government, was elected as party leader in September. She then succeeded Johnson as prime minister on September 6. But Truss’s tax proposals soon led to economic and political turmoil, and her government withdrew the proposals in October. On October 20, after six weeks in office, Truss announced that she would resign upon her party’s selection of a successor. Rishi Sunak, a former chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister), succeeded Truss as Conservative Party leader on October 24. He then became prime minister on October 25.

Queen Elizabeth II died on Sept. 8, 2022, at Balmoral Castle, at the age of 96. The queen’s 70-year reign, which began in 1952, was the longest in British history. Elizabeth’s son Charles, Prince of Wales, then became King Charles III. The queen’s death was mourned in the United Kingdom and throughout the world.

In a general election held in July 2024, the Labour Party defeated the Conservatives by a large margin and won control of the government. Labour leader Keir Starmer became prime minister.