ENGLAND
HISTORY |
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Since the term "English" explicitly refers to peoples who arrived on the
island of Great Britain relatively recently, it is anachronistic to talk of
England's prehistory or ancient history, which (although rich and
interesting) are properly dealt with as part of the history of the island of
Great Britain as a whole. Suffice it to say that when the geographical
region we call "England" was invaded inconsequentially by Julius Caesar in
55 BC, and then again more conclusively the next century by the Emperor
Claudius, it was inhabited by Celtic tribes collectively called "Britons."
The whole southern part of the island — roughly corresponding to modern day
England and Wales — became a part of the Roman Empire until finally
abandoned early in the 5th century. |
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Unaided by Roman legions, Roman Britannia could not long resist the Germanic
tribes who arrived in the 5th and 6th centuries, pushing the Britons back
into modern-day Wales and Cornwall. The invaders fell into three main groups:
the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles. As they became more civilized,
recognizable states formed and began to merge with one another. (The most
well-known state of affairs being the "Anglo-Saxon heptarchy".) From time to
time throughout this period, one Anglo-Saxon king, recognized as the "Bretwalda"
by other rulers, had effective control of all or most of the English; so it
is impossible to identify the precise moment when the country of England was
unified. In some sense, real unity came as a response to the Danish Viking
incursions which occupied the eastern half of "England" in the 8th century.
Egbert, King of Wessex (d. 839) is often regarded as the first king of all
the English, although the title "King of England" was first adopted, two
generations later, by Alfred the Great (ruled 871–899).
Some school histories of England begin with the Norman conquest in 1066, and
the numbering system used for English monarchs treats that event as a blank
slate from which to count. (For example, the Edward I who reigned in the
13th century was not the first king of England of that name, only the first
since the conquest.) But although he unquestionably engineered a pivotal
moment in the country's history, William the Conqueror did not "found" or
"unify" the country; he took over a pre-existing England and gave it a
Norman-French administration and nobility who gradually adopted the language
and customs of the English over the succeeding centuries.
From the late 13th century, the neighbouring principality of Wales was
joined to England, and gradually came to be a part of that kingdom for most
legal purposes, although in the modern era it is more usually thought of as
a separate nation (fielding, for example, its own athletic teams). The
history of England as an independent country stretches on through the middle
ages and renaissance to the reign of Elizabeth I, often remembered as a
golden age in its history, notable both for its culture and mercantile
success. Elizabeth's successor, James I was already king of Scotland (as
James VI); and this personal union of the two crowns was followed a century
later by the Act of Union 1707 which finally joined England and Scotland
into the germ of the present-day United Kingdom. For the history of England
after that date. |
