History of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is the sovereign state or realm that covers England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and which for over one hundred years included the whole of the island of Ireland.

Conquests and Unions before 1800

Union of England and Wales

Medieval Wales was rarely united but was under the rule of various native principalities. When the land-hungry Normans invaded England, they naturally started pushing into the relatively weak Welsh Marches, setting up a number of lordships in the Eastern part of the country and the border areas. In response, the usually fractious Welsh, who still retained control of the north and west of Wales, started to unite around leaders such as Llywelyn the Great.

Related Topics:
Medieval - Wales - Normans - Welsh Marches - Llywelyn the Great

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In 1282, King Edward I (1272-1307) finally conquered the last remaining native Welsh principalities in north and west Wales (an area roughly corresponding to the present day counties of Anglesey, Caernarfonshire, Merioneth, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire). The Statute of Rhuddlan formally established Edward's rule over Wales two years later. To appease the Welsh, Edward's son (later Edward II), who had been born in Wales, was made Prince of Wales on7 February 1301. Wales therefore took the status of Principality, which it held officially between 1284 and 1536. The tradition of bestowing the style 'Prince of Wales' on the eldest son of the British Monarch continues to the present day.

Related Topics:
King Edward I - Anglesey - Caernarfonshire - Merioneth - Ceredigion - Carmarthenshire - Statute of Rhuddlan - Edward II - Prince of Wales - 7 February - 1301 - Monarch

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Between 1284 and 1536 the Crown only had direct control over the principality, as the Marcher lords (ruling over independent lordships in the East and South of Wales) were independent from crown control. An act of 1536 completed the political and administrative union of England and Wales. The Act of Union 1536 partitioned Wales into thirteen counties: Anglesey, Brecon, Caernarfon, Cardigan, Carmarthen, Denbigh, Flint, Glamorgan, Merioneth, Monmouth (with some controversy; see Monmouthshire), Montgomery, Pembroke and Radnor and applied the Law of England to both England and Wales, making English the language to be used for official purposes. This excluded most native Welsh from any formal office. Wales was also now represented in Parliament at Westminster.

Related Topics:
1536 - Act of Union 1536 - Monmouthshire

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English conquest of Ireland

The conquest of Ireland began in 1169 under Henry II (1154-89). At first, it was not strictly an English conquest, as it was launched by a small group of Normans who were neither English nor acting on behalf of the English Crown. A dispossessed Norman baron from Wales, Richard fitzGilbert de Clare ('Strongbow') teamed up with the exiled Irish king, Diarmuid MacMorrough, to help him recover his kingdom of Leinster. The Normans consequently gained a territorial foothold in Ireland, capturing Dublin in 1170. The success of Strongbow alarmed Henry II, who was worried that he was becoming too powerful. Henry invaded Ireland himself in 1171, whereupon many Irish kings submitted to his authority, and Dublin and the surrounding area came under his control. This effectively created the Lordship of Ireland(1171-1541) which came under the control of Henry's son, John. John unexpectedly became king in 1199 after the death of his brother, Richard I, and his accession brought the Lordship of Ireland under the direct control of the king. John set up a parliament in Dublin, though in reality this only had jurisdiction over the 'Pale'. The English still only controlled a relatively small area of Ireland.

Related Topics:
Ireland - 1169 - Henry II - English - Normans - Wales - Richard fitzGilbert de Clare - Diarmuid MacMorrough - Leinster - Dublin - 1170 - 1171 - Lordship of Ireland - John - 1199 - Richard I - Pale

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In 1541 the Irish Parliament offered to change the status of Ireland to a kingdom, with King Henry VIII (1509-47) as its monarch; Henry, regarding the way he styled himself as beyond the law of Parliament, refused, but began to style himself as King of Ireland the next year anyway. This created a union of the Crowns, similar to that which was created in England and Scotland after 1603. For the remainder of the 16th century, the Tudor monarchs expanded their control over Ireland from the small Pale around Dublin to control over the whole island by 1603. The Tudor re-conquest of Ireland saw large-scale violence, culminating in the Desmond Rebellions and the Nine Years War. Another feature of the sixteenth century was the creation of English Plantations of Ireland, which attempted to extend English influence further into Ireland by confiscating land from Irish landowners and "planting" colonies of English settlers in their place.

Related Topics:
1541 - Irish Parliament - Henry VIII - King of Ireland - Scotland - 1603 - Pale - Tudor re-conquest of Ireland - Desmond Rebellions - Nine Years War - Plantations of Ireland

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The Union of Two Crowns

Scotland was an independent kingdom that resisted English rule. Scotland, because of its climate and its relatively despotic government tended to be poorer than its southern neighbour. However, political instability and the "Auld Alliance" with France made successive English governments very nervous, and the perceived need to separate Scotland from Catholic France was one of the driving forces in English policy towards Scotland and in the Scottish Reformation.

Related Topics:
Scotland - Kingdom - English - Despot - Auld Alliance - France - Catholic - France - Reformation

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The Scottish Reformation saw a clash between the old religion (Roman Catholicism) and the new (The Church of Scotland, known as Presbyterianism). The controversial Catholic Queen of Scotland, Mary I (known popularly as 'Mary, Queen of Scots']] was forced to abdicate and fled to England, leaving her infant son, James VI, to rule, guided by Protestant guardians. She was a figure of intrigue who, because of doubts among English Catholics about the legality of Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn, was seen by many as a more legitimate heir to the English throne than her Protestant cousin Queen Elizabeth I. Mary's great-grandfather was Elizabeth's own grandfather Henry VII by an earlier marriage alliance between England and Scotland. Elizabeth put her cousin under house arrest and eventually, amid rumours of a plot to overthrow her, reluctantly had her executed on charges of treason.

Related Topics:
Roman Catholicism - Church of Scotland - Presbyterianism - Mary I - James VI - Protestant - Henry VIII - Anne Boleyn - Elizabeth I - Henry VII - House arrest - Treason

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James VI succeeded his cousin Elizabeth I and assumed the title James I of England in 1603. The Stuarts now reigned as the royal family of "Great Britain"2, although the two realms maintained separate parliaments. The Union of the Two Crowns had begun. In the ensuing 100 years, strong religious and political differences continued to divide the kingdoms, and common royalty could not prevent occasions of internecine warfare.

Related Topics:
James I of England - 1603 - Stuarts - 2 - Union of the Two Crowns

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Republican Rule 1649

The accession of James VI/I's son, Charles I, in 1625 marked the beginning of an intense schism between King and Parliament. Charles's adherence to the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings fuelled a vicious battle for supremacy between king and Parliament. The crisis culminated in the English Civil War (1643-49), saw Charles's execution and ushered in a period of rule as a parliamentary Commonwealth (1649-53) followed by a period of personal rule under the Parliamentarian veteran Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. The new regime remained unpopular, however, and Cromwell's death left a political void which could not be filled, even by his son Richard who ruled from 1658-59 before a tentative reversion to the system prior to Cromwell's Protectorate. Ultimately, the will for political stability impelled Parliament to negotiate the restoration of the monarchy in the person of Charles's son, Charles II. The period from the earliest crises between Charles I and Parliament in the 1620s until the Restoration in 1660 is now increasingly referred to by historians as the English Revolution.

Related Topics:
Charles I - Divine Right of Kings - English Civil War - Execution - Parliamentary Commonwealth - Oliver Cromwell - Lord Protector - Restoration of the monarchy - Charles II

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The Commonwealth period also saw Ireland and Scotland annexed by England and their legislative autonomy abolished. Ireland in particular was permanently altered by the civil war period, as its native Irish Catholic landowning class was dispossessed after the Cromwellian conquest and replaced with a British Protestant ruling class. Both Ireland and Scotland had their nominal autonomy from London restored after the Restoration. Nevertheless, the era of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms went a long way towards establishing English primacy over the other two Kingdoms in the Stuart monarchy.

Related Topics:
Cromwellian conquest - Wars of the Three Kingdoms

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The Act of Union 1707

Deeper political integration was a goal of the policy of Queen Anne (1702-14), who succeeded to the throne in 1702. Under the aegis of the Queen and her advisors, a Bill of Union was drawn up and in 1706 negotiations between England and Scotland began in earnest. The circumstances of Scotland's acceptance of the Bill are to some degree disputed. Opponents believed that failure to accede to the Bill would result in the imposition of Union under less favourable terms. There was fierce debate on both sides of the border, and in some quarters Union was deeply unpopular. However, the near-bankrupt Scottish Parliament did eventually accept the proposals.

Related Topics:
Queen Anne - Scottish Parliament

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In 1707 the Act of Union received Royal assent, abolishing England and Scotland as separate kingdoms and creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain with a single Parliament. Anne became formally the first occupant of a single British throne, and Scotland sent 45 MPs to the unified parliament at Westminster which had now transformed into the Parliament of Great Britain. This also meant that Scotland and England could enjoy free trade with each other. However, certain Scottish and English institutions were not merged into the British system; Scottish and English law remained separate, as did Scottish and English currency and the Church of Scotland and Church of England which were to remain intact and have remained so ever since. One provision of the Act of Union, the renaming of Scotland and England as 'North Britain' and 'South Britain' respectively, failed to take hold and fell into disuse very quickly. (By the Victorian period, the terms 'England' and 'English' had become synonymous with 'Britain' and 'British', very much against the spirit of the 1707 Act.)

Related Topics:
Royal assent - Parliament at Westminster - Parliament of Great Britain - Free trade - Scottish - English - Scottish - English - Church of Scotland - Church of England

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