england

KINGS AND QUEENS OF ENGLAND
Hardecnut 1040-1042
Edward the Confessor 1042-1066
Harold II 1066
William the Conqueror 1066
William II (Rufus) 1087-1100
Henry I 1100-1135
Stephen 1135-1154
Henry II 1154-1189
Richard I 1189-1199
John 1199-1216
Henry III 1216-1272
Edward I 1272-1307
Edward II 1307-1327
Edward III 1327-1377
Richard II 1377-1399
Henry IV 1399-1413
Henry V 1413-1422
Henry IV 1422-1461
Edward IV 1461-1470
Henry VI 1470-1471
Edward IV 1471-1483
Richard III 1483-1485
Henry VII 1485-1509
Henry VIII 1509-1547
Edward VI 1547-1553
Jane 1553 9 days
Mary I 1553-1558
Elizabeth I 1558-1603
James I 1603-1625
Charles I 1625-1649
Cromwell, Oliver and Richard 1653-1659
Charles II 1660-1685
James II 1685-1688
William III and Mary II 1689-1702
Anne 1702-1714
George I 1714-1727
George II 1727-1760
George III 1760-1820
George IV 1820-1830
William IV 1830-1837
Victoria 1837-1901
Edward VII 1901-1910
George V 1910-1936
Edward VIII 1936
George VI 1936-1952
Elizabeth II 1952-

English Hundred Years War

The Hundred Years' War began in the reign of Edward III, who was the King of England from 1327 to 1377. Edward, who loved knightly pursuits such as war, jousting, tournaments and hunting, surrounded himself with warriors, magnates, and chivalrous knights. The Hundred Years' War broke out as a result of a dispute between Edward and Philip, the French King, over French royal succession.

Edward was the nearest surviving male relative to the French king after the three French Capetian kings, Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IV, all failed to produce male heirs. In order to prevent Edward from claiming the throne, the French parliament and supreme court declared that claims to the French throne could not be passed through women. The French Estates chose Philip of Valois, a first cousin of the preceding kings, to become king and Edward did not initially dispute this decision.

However, there were other points of contention between the British and French. There was a clash of interests in the county of Flanders, whose cloth-making industry relied on England for wool. Early in the 14th century, Flemish artisans rose up in a series of bloody revolts against the aristocratic cloth dealers who had long monopolized power. The Count of Flanders and the French king supported the merchants, while the English sided with the artisans.

This tension culminated in 1337, over the status of the feudal territories of Pontheau and Aquitaine. When Philip became the king of France, Edward paid homage for these territories, but Philip then insisted on liege homage, which would have obligated Edward to support Philip against all enemies. Edward refused and Philip attempted to confiscate the region of Gascony from his English "vassal" by declaring Edward's feudal territories forfeit. Edward declared war on France and his goal was to claim the crown of his maternal grandfather as well as to reclaim Gascony.

The Hundred Years' War accelerated changes in technology and government institutions in both France and Britain. It stimulated the growth of parliamentary privileges, but it also drained the English economy and population. Since all the battles of the war were fought on French soil, English mercenaries continually pillaged the French lands. France suffered far more from the Hundred Years' War than England did. During the war, France was ravaged by civil strife as its population, economy and resources depleted.

Britons

The Britons, who were one of the ancient races that inhabited medieval England, were subject to Roman invasions since the 1st century BC, when Julius Caesar sent expeditions to the island. Under Claudius, in 43 AD, the Romans invaded England once again and established the Roman province of Britannia. The Romans occupied England for approximately four centuries. They used the Britons in their military enterprises abroad and most of those who remained in Britain were reduced to slavery.

However, from about the mid- 4th century, the prosperity and power of the Roman Empire declined significantly. Due to the raids of the Picts and the Scots, the Romans found it increasingly difficult to maintain their presence in Britain, particularly after Hadrian's Wall was overwhelmed in 367. The Roman legions left England in the early 5th century and barbarian invaders began to pour over the frontiers.

The Saxon and Angle tribes that migrated to Britain pushed the ancient Britons to the frontiers of the island. The Saxons were a Teutonic tribe of people originally from Germany. They began to settle in southeastern England in about the year 400 AD. The Angles, another Teutonic tribe, occupied the east coast, north of the Saxons. The Angle and Saxon cultures blended together as they came to dominate the country. Although the Anglo-Saxons were predominantly made up of Angles and Saxons, there were other tribes such as the Jutes and Frisians who made up the medley of tribes in England.

In the conflicts between these invaders and the native peoples of England, the cities of Britain were devastated, industry and systems of transport decayed, and Roman Christianity was replaced by German paganism. Nevertheless, by the time the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain, the Roman way of life was already disintegrating. The Anglo-Saxons spoke their own language, believed in their own gods, and maintained their own traditions. However, this culture was influenced by Rome in a more subtle way. During the 7th century, the Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity and consequently, their contact with France and Italy increased and Roman style education, learning and craftsmanship was revived.

Cornish people

The Cornish people, who inhabited the southwest of England, have a rich Celtic heritage. Cornwall was originally home to a people known as the Dumnonians, who were comprised of three tribes of ancient Britons known as the Veniti, the Curiovolitae, and the Asismii. They were akin to their Welsh neighbors to the north, who also spoke a Brythonic Celtic language, and they were the root stock of the Breton people, who settled in Brittany in northwestern France in the 4th century.

The region has historically been famed for its huge deposits of tin, which continued to be profitably mined until the 19th century. It was partially this source of wealth that first attracted the attention of the Roman Empire, which first sent expeditions, led by Julius Caesar in 55 BC, and then invaded the island nation under Claudius in 43 AD. The province of Britannia was subsequently established. However, after nearly four centuries of rule, Brittany was largely abandoned by the Romans during the early 5th century, when the imperial legions were recalled to Rome in a vain attempt to fend off the conquest of the empire by barbarian tribes. Those Romans that remained were expelled by the Britons in 409 AD.

However, the Romans were soon replaced by new overlords. During the 5th and 6th centuries, Teutonic tribes led by the Angles and the Saxons began to settle in England. The newcomers began the subjugation of the Celtic inhabitants; those Britons who were not enslaved or massacred were slowly driven out of their homelands, despite a great victory they scored over the Anglo-Saxons in 500 AD, at Mount Badon in the present-day county of Dorset. By 650 AD the Anglo-Saxons had entrenched themselves in eleven kingdoms, including Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Kent, Essex, Sussex and East Anglia, which were collectively known as the Heptarchy. Meanwhile, the Britons had retreated to the regions which became known as Cornwall and Wales in the southwest of the island. The name Cornwall is derived from the Celtic tribal name Cornovii, which means peninsula people, and the Old English word walh, which means Briton.

Wessex emerged as the dominant Anglo-Saxon kingdom during the 9th century, when Egbert, King of Wessex, wrested control of most of the southern lands from the Mercians in 825. The Cornish people persistently defended their land against the Anglo-Saxons, and allied themselves with the Vikings who had begun to plunder and settle Britain in 793. The Britons of Cornwall joined an army of marauding Danes and invaded Wessex in 838, only to be defeated by Egbert at the Battle of Hingston Down. From then on, Cornwall was under the control of the Anglo-Saxons, despite a revolt in 926 that was put down by Æthelstan, King of Wessex, who consolidated his position as king of England in 944.

The supreme position of the Anglo-Saxons was not to last much beyond a century, for, in 1066, the forces of King Harold II were defeated by those of Duke William of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings. The Norman Conquest marked a new era in the history of England. New cultural, ecclesiastical, and commercial links were established with the continent. The feudal system was introduced, and the Norman aristocracy displaced the Old Anglo-Saxon thegns. William the Conqueror granted almost all of Cornwall to his half-brother Count Robert of Montain. The region went on to become known as the great duchy of Cornwall during the time of Edward, the Black Prince, who lived during the 14th century.

Cromwell and the Civil War

The English Civil War of the 1640s was marked by the trial and execution of King Charles I and the suspension of the monarchy for a period of eleven years. It was during this revolution, and the subsequent interregnum, that Oliver Cromwell became the most influential man in Britain.

Though Charles I was a capable monarch, he was not a popular ruler. Charles was widely criticized for high rates of taxation; however, there were also more specific complaints about his rule. Charles was viewed as distant and aloof and his policy of ruling according to divine right alienated many of his subjects. Local elites felt that the monarch was stripping them of their power, while individual subjects believed that their freedom was being eroded by the Crown. Charles I appeared to be setting the government of Britain on a course towards absolute monarchy. He was also seen as something of a Catholic sympathizer who practiced an unsettlingly "popish" version of Protestantism; Catholicism appeared to be driving out Protestantism at court.

In parliament, the House of Commons was dominated by the Puritans, who objected to the views of Charles I's advisor, the Duke of Buckingham, whom they blamed for a military defeat at the hands of Spain in 1626. A movement by the Puritans to impeach the duke for treason was cut short by Charles I, who dissolved parliament as a preventive measure. However, another British military defeat attributable to Buckingham led parliament to coerce Charles I into signing the "Petition of Rights", which limited the power of the Crown. Yet, the taxation and "popishness" continued.

In 1629, parliament unilaterally condemned the actions of King Charles I. Sensing a revolutionary mood, the king dissolved parliament once again and he did not call it into session again for eleven years. In so doing, King Charles abandoned the foundation upon which his rulership relied: the consent of his subjects. As a result, the general feeling of discontent continued to ferment.

When parliament finally reconvened in 1640, it remained in session throughout the following year and beyond. This Long Parliament gained some concessions from the Crown, but Charles I refused to surrender the army to parliamentary control and also rejected their demands that a program of church reform be undertaken. These irreconcilable differences plunged the country into a bitter civil war, with the royalist forces facing the New Model Army led by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.

Revolution raged in England, Scotland, and Ireland throughout the 1640s. In 1648, the parliamentary rebels finally crushed the king's English and Scottish forces, and placed Charles I on trial for high treason in August of that year. Refusing to recognize the legality of the trial, the king remained defiant and uncooperative. Charles I was found guilty of high treason, sentenced to death, and was beheaded at Whitehall on January 30, 1649.

The parliamentary forces then faced the task of forming a new government and restoring order. Britain was declared a republic and the new regime was headed by an oligarchic parliament and backed by the army. However, Cromwell grew dissatisfied with the ineffectiveness and incompetence of parliament and he developed an appreciation for absolute power. Reforming parliament to suit his tastes, Cromwell set himself up as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Although he resisted the temptation to declare himself king, the military strongman did maintain the right to choose his successor. Often called a virtual kingship, his regime was certainly a dictatorship governed under martial law.

Royalist sentiment did not cease with the death of Charles I, and the king's supporters in Scotland attempted to install his son as King Charles II; however, this attempt was crushed decisively. In the eyes of some, the execution of Charles I transformed him into a martyr. Others demanded a greater level of democratic socialism than the new regime was prepared to supply.

In Ireland, conflict persisted until 1652, and Cromwell eventually subdued the Irish through a ruthless policy of massacre. Some witnesses reported all life to have been completely wiped out in some counties. The 'Act of Settling of Ireland' confiscated the property of all Irishmen who could not prove themselves to have been loyal to the Commonwealth. Two-thirds of Ireland passed into the hands of Englishmen as thousands of Irish families were dispossessed and displaced. Hundreds were deported to Barbados and elsewhere. Catholicism was outlawed and mandatory Protestantism was rigorously enforced.

Cromwell's son, Richard, proved to be a weaker ruler than his father. Upon Cromwell's retirement as Lord Protector, Richard could not maintain control over the army. Before long, he retired from politics. The Long Parliament was compelled to come to its official end in 1660, when increasing royalist sentiment forced a new election. The new parliament was overwhelmingly royalist and immediately proclaimed Charles II as king, restoring the monarchy after eleven years. However, the British monarchy was less despotic than it had been prior to the civil war, due to the lingering example that had been made of Charles I. Additionally, the church had been thrust into a position of only marginal importance during the Cromwell regime. It remained less influential after the Restoration, leading to the secularization of the British state.

Domesday Book: Overview

The Domesday Book, our earliest public record, is a unique survey of the value and ownership of lands and resources in late 11th century England. The record was compiled in 1086-7, a mere twenty years after the Norman Conquest, at the order of William the Conqueror.William commissioned the survey at Christmas 1085. Ironically it was the only census of England before 1801.

William produced the book because his power was being threatened from a number of quarters, such as the chronically rebellious North, Denmark, and Norway, during the last years of his reign. However, the book was more than just a fiscal record. It provided a detailed record of all lands held by the king and his tenants and of the resources that went with those lands. It recorded which manors rightfully belonged to which estates, and was also a feudal statement. It revealed the identities of the landholders, who held their lands directly from the Crown, and of their tenants and under tenants.

The inventory, written in Latin, contains a wealth of information that illuminates one of the most crucial times in history - the conquest and settlement of England by the Normans. The original book itself still survives, preserved for centuries at Winchester, the capital of the ancient Saxon Kingdom of Wessex, and is now held in London at the Public Records office.

The name "Domesday" refers to the book of the day of judgment and as such refers to the reverence the book has always held. But before the name Domesday, the book was called "the King's book" and the "great book of Winchester". The latter reference was coined because of the aforementioned location at Winchester.

The text consists of two volumes: "Great Domesday" which is now bound in two parts and the "Little Domesday" which is now bound in three parts. The Great Domesday describes thirty-one counties while the Little Domesday covers Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. The names refer only to the size of the volumes, not their importance. Ironically, the Little Domesday is of greater bulk than the Great Domesday because less abbreviations were used and it contains greater information for many of the entries.

Like censuses today, it was out of date before it was completed as estates changed hands during the survey, rents and of course, livestock which were dutifully listed in many places expectedly changed.

It is important to note that there are scattered references to first and last names that were obviously in use at that time throughout the reference. For example, names like Gilbert Tison, Ralph Paynel and Robert Malet were found in Yorkshire. Trade names like Walter the the deacon and Walter the crossbowman were still very much in use. Norman influence in names like William de EU and Roger de Lacy are very common.

King Edward I

After the rebellion of 1296, King Edward I (1239-1307) of England marched north, capturing Berwick and carried on to Aberdeen. There he stripped John Baliol of his crown and carried the Coronation Stone of Scone back to England. The Stone of Scone, (pronounced "skoon") sometimes called the Stone of Destiny was an extremely important symbol of Scottish heritage and the fact that it was never returned contributed to a strong discomfort between Scotland and England over the many years.

Upon Edward's death, his son buried him at Westminster Abbey with the inscription Scotorum malleus (Hammer of Scots).

The Ragman Rolls lists barons and gentry who paid homage or swore an oath of alliegance to the English King upon his conquest of Scotland.

The Stone was used in coronations since 1308 and remained in Westminster Abbey until it was stolen in the 1950's. Upon it's returnin that same year, it was kept in a vault. In 1952, it was returned to its perch under the seat of the Coronation Chair at Westminster, where it was kept under tight security. It was formally returned to Scotland November 15, 1996 and was put on public display at Edinburgh Castle.

Early Years

In the 5th century, when England had only recently been deserted by the Roman legions, the Anglo-Saxons established the independent kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Kent, Essex, Sussex and East Anglia, which were collectively known as the Heptarchy. During the 6th and 7th centuries, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms engaged in heroic battles for military supremacy and were gradually converted to Christianity. After Augustine's mission in the late 6th century, English Christianity was consolidated. In the 8th century, the Anglo-Saxons were violently attacked and devastated by the Vikings and by the 9th century, the Vikings sporadic forays into England became a recurring harassment. Also during the 9th century, the country was divided between the four rival kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia and Wessex, which were later unified by Egbert, King of Wessex.

In 994, the Danes invaded England, and this invasion eventually led to the expulsion of the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred. Ethelred fled to Normandy, where his family remained until 1042, and the Anglo-Saxon rulers never truly recovered their lost power. After 1042, a Danish dynasty of kings ruled, and then Edward the Confessor, son of Ethelred, came to the throne. Upon the death of Edward in 1066, the elected king was challenged by Duke William of Normandy. William's successful invasion of 1066, known as the Norman Conquest, ushered in the reign of the Norman kings. The Norman Conquest from France and their victory at the Battle of Hastings, meant that many Anglo-Saxon landholders lost their property to Duke William and his invading nobles. However, despite this change of leadership, English culture remained predominantly Anglo-Saxon.

The early years of Norman rule were marked by rebellion and oppression. William sought to achieve political stability by centralizing authority upon the king and although learning was encouraged during William's reign, many of his policies were tyrannical in nature. Under this oppressive Norman rule many families decided to move north to Yorkshire and beyond the border to Scotland.

During the modern era, England was devastated by religious and political conflict. Under the Tudors the problems of succession, strife between Catholics and Protestants, and the fear of foreign invasion had mainly been resolved. Later, under the House of Stuart, there were conflicts between the king and parliament, and between the Catholics and the Protestants. The Stuarts came to power at a time when the middle class was becoming increasingly powerful and willing to assert its rights through parliament. The Stuarts were ousted from power first by Cromwell and then by the Glorious Revolution which resulted in the long series of Jacobite uprisings.