England

:For an explanation of often confusing terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology).

History

Main article: History of England

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This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,

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This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

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This other Eden, demi-paradise,

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This fortress built by Nature for herself

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Against infection and the hand of war,

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This happy breed of men, this little world,

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This precious stone set in the silver sea,

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Which serves it in the office of a wall

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Or as a moat defensive to a house,

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Against the envy of less happier lands,—

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This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

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William Shakespeare

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Richard II (Act 2, Scene 1)

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The English are great lovers of themselves, and of everything belonging to them; they think that there are no other men than themselves, and no other world but England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner, they say that 'he looks like an Englishman', and that 'it is a great pity that he should not be an Englishmen'".

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Venetian ambassador to EnglandEarly 16th centuryCharlotte Augusta SneydItalian Relations of England (p. 20)

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England has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years, although the repeated Ice Ages made much of Britain uninhabitable for extended periods until as recently as 20,000 years ago. Stone Age hunter-gatherers eventually gave way to farmers and permanent settlements, with a spectacular and sophisticated megalithic civilisation arising in western England some 4,000 years ago. It was replaced around 1,500 years later by Celtic tribes migrating from Western and continental Europe, mainly from France. These tribes were known collectively as "Britons", a name bestowed by Phoenician traders - an indication of how, even at this early date, the island was part of a Europe-wide trading network.

Related Topics:
Ice Ages - Stone Age - Megalithic - Phoenicia

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The Britons were significant players in continental politics and supported their allies in Gaul militarily during the Gallic Wars with the Roman Republic. This prompted the Romans to invade and subdue the island, first with Julius Caesar's raid in 55 BC, and then the Emperor Claudius' conquest in the following century. The whole southern part of the island — roughly corresponding to modern day England and Wales — became a prosperous part of the Roman Empire. It was finally abandoned early in the 5th century when a weakening Empire pulled back its legions to defend borders on the Continent.

Related Topics:
Gaul - Gallic Wars - Roman Republic - Julius Caesar - 55 BC - Claudius - Wales - Roman Empire - 5th century

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Unaided by the Roman army, Roman Britannia could not long resist the Germanic tribes who arrived in the 5th and 6th centuries, enveloping the majority of modern day England in a new culture and language and pushing Romano-British rule back into modern-day Wales and western extremities of England, notably Cornwall and Cumbria. Others emigrated across the channel to modern-day Brittany, thus giving it its name and language (Breton). But many of the Romano-British remained in and were assimilated into the newly "English" areas.

Related Topics:
5th - 6th - Wales - Cornwall - Cumbria - Brittany - Breton

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The invaders fell into three main groups: the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles. As they became more civilised, recognisable 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, recognised 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 Kingdom 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).

Related Topics:
Jutes - Saxons - Angles - Heptarchy - Bretwalda - Kingdom of England - Viking - 8th century - Egbert - Wessex - 839 - Alfred the Great - 871 - 899

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The principal legacy left behind in those territories from which the language of the Britons were displaced is that of toponyms. Many of the place-names in England and to a lesser extent Scotland are derived from celtic British names, including London, Dumbarton, York, Dorchester, Dover and Colchester. Several place-name elements are thought to be wholly or partly Brythonic in origin, particularly bre-, bal-, and -dun for hills, carr for a high rocky place, coomb for a small deep valley.

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Until recently it has been believed that those areas settled by the Anglo-Saxons were uninhabited at the time or the Britons had fled before them. However, genetic studies show that the British were not pushed out to the Celtic fringes ? many tribes remained in what was to become England (see C. Capelli et al. 'A Y chromosome census of the British Isles'. Current Biology 13, 979?984, (2003)). Capelli's findings strengthen the research of Steven Bassett of Birmingham University; his work during the 1990s suggests that much of the West Midlands was only very lightly colonised with Anglian and Saxon settlements.

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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; a well-established English kingdom had already existed for several centuries.

Related Topics:
Norman Conquest - Edward I - William the Conqueror

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Rather, William took over a pre-existing England and gave it an Anglo-Norman administration and nobility who, retaining proto-French as their language for the next three hundred years, ruled as custodians over English commoners. Although the language and racial distinctions faded rapidly during the middle ages, the class system born in the Norman/Saxon divide persisted longer — arguably with traces lasting to the modern day.

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While Old English continued to be spoken by common folk, Norman feudal lords significantly influenced the language with French words and customs being adopted over the succeeding centuries evolving to a Romance-Germanic hybrid of Middle English widely spoken in Chaucer's time.

Related Topics:
Old English - Middle English

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England came repeatedly into conflict with Wales and Scotland, at the time an independent principality and an independent kingdom respectively, as its rulers sought to expand Norman power across the entire island of Britain. The conquest of Wales was achieved in the 13th century, when it was annexed 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). Norman power in Scotland waxed and waned over the years, with the Scots managing to maintain a varying degree of independence despite repeated wars with the English. Although it was on the whole only a moderately successful power in military terms, England became one of the wealthiest states in medieval Europe, due chiefly to its dominance in the lucrative wool market.

Related Topics:
Wales - Scotland - Nation - Wool

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The failure of English territorial ambitions in continental Europe prompted the kingdom's rulers to look further afield, creating the foundations of the mercantile and colonial network that was to become the British Empire. The turmoil of the Reformation embroiled England in religious wars with Europe's Catholic powers, notably Spain, but the kingdom preserved its independence as much through luck as through the skill of charismatic rulers such as Elizabeth I. Elizabeth's successor, James I was already king of Scotland (as James VI); and this personal union of the two crowns into the crown of Great Brittaine was followed a century later by the Act of Union 1707, which formally unified England, Scotland and Wales into the Kingdom of Great Britain. This later became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801 to 1927) and then the modern state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1927 to present)

Related Topics:
British Empire - Reformation - Spain - Elizabeth I - James I - Act of Union 1707 - Kingdom of Great Britain - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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For post-unification history, see history of the United Kingdom.

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