The British Isles were cut off from the Continent by melting ice around 6000 BC.

Most famous prehistoric monuments: stone circles in Stonehenge and Avebury, and the Uffington White horse

Stonehenge: built in several stages ~3000 BC - 1500 BC (much before Druidism spreads in Britain)

Celtic invasions from Southern Europe (6th c. BC ® 2nd c. AD tribes from Gaul migrate)

Britain's written history begins with the Romans who occupied Britain for some 350 years.

Legacy (What remained after the Roman colonization of Britain) :

§  Roads (no hard roads in England again until the 18th c !! ® better roads in Roman times than in Tudor or Stuart times!!)

§  Christianity  (many “Welsh” Celts became Christians)

§  Fortresses, public buildings, villas and walls (Roman baths in Bath, York city walls, Hadrian’s Wall, etc.)

§  City sites (Many towns and cities were established by the Romans: London, York, Chester, Bath)

Around the mid-5th century Angles and Saxons (Germanic people with a Germanic language) began to raid Britain.

The legendary King Arthur led the British resistance to the Anglo-Saxon invasion in the early years of the 5th c.

7 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were established in England:

§  7th c.: Northumbria dominates: pagan Anglo-Saxons convert to Christianity

§  8th c.: Mercia dominates  (Saxon literature: Beowulf – written in Old English)

§  9th c.: Wessex - King Alfred the Great fights off Viking attacks

§  10th c.: England is united under the kings of Wessex

Vikings from Norway, Denmark: 1st only raids ® permanent immigration (for the Vikings England was south!)

§  842 Vikings raid London

§  878 Alfred the Great beats the Vikings: kingdom of Wessex remains independent

§  Saxon-Viking power struggle:

    Danelaw: N-Eastern England ruled/colonized by the Danes (Vikings) for 130 years

    Viking kings ruled all England for 30 years in the 11th c.

(An interesting fact: Europe was raided by 3 different peoples in the 9th century: the Vikings from the North, the Moors from the South and the Magyars from the East.  The Vikings assimilated, the Moors were pushed out from the Iberian Penisula in the late 15th century, but the Magyars have kept their culture and language and are an independent country in the 21st century!)

William the Conqueror

A page from

Doomsday Book

An incredible fact: The Norman Conquest marks the last time that England was successfully invaded!

(What a contrast with the history of the other European countries and nations!)

§  Norman Conquest: 1066-70  (The Normans were Norsemen, Vikings who had established a colony in Northern France.  In fact, William the Conqueror was the grandson of one of the Viking chieftains who occupied Normandy.)  

§  A country of ~1.5 million was overran by an army of 5000...

§  New aristocracy (“Change of regime”):  4000 Saxon landowners replaced by 200 Norman landlords!! ®

§  Feudalism introduced!   William the Conqueror: owned all the lands of England but gave land to his vassals. 

    The native Anglo-Saxons were forced into serfdom. 

§  Norman-French law was introduced

§  French is spoken by the ruling class until the 13th century

§  1086 Doomsday Book: a record of all land + the owners + the number of servants, animals, tools, crop, income ® 1st economic survey in Europe, compiled on the orders of William the Conqueror for taxing purposes

   (Gives us a faithful picture of early Norman England!)

Henry II

John 'the Lackland'

Edward I.

Henry VII.

Henry II (William's great-grandson)  

§  Ruled the first British Empire ®  Angevin Empire: England, Ireland, Normandy, Anjou, Brittany, Aquitaine, Gascony. (Brittany, Anjou, Aquitaine and Gascony were the dowry of his wife, Ireland was subdued by Henry in 1171.)

§  Centralization of royal power ®  Struggle between church and state (Who has ultimate control over the country: the pope through the bishops or the king? Whose vassals are the bishops, should they obey the pope or the king?) 1170 Thomas Becket is murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on the orders of Henry II, all Europe is shocked…Canterbury soon becomes an important site of Christian pilgrimage - depicted 2 centuries later in Chaucer's Canterbury tales in the 14th c.)

§  England’s first university: Oxford University is established (1167)  (with the specific intention to keep the young men from going abroad to study on the Continent and become too "open-minded"...)   

§  John “the Lackland”: Lost Normandy!! (Most of the barons had lands in Normandy!) + raised taxes

§  Barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta (1215) ("Cornerstone of English liberties" - gave the nobles basic rights, protecting them from arbitrary taxation by the king.)

Edward I  (1272-1307)

§  Continued the conquest of Ireland, Wales, attacked Scotland: (portrayed in the movie: Braveheart, or in Arany János: Walesi bárdok)

§  1295 convened the 1st (Model) parliament (to impose new taxes…Each shire and town had to elect 2 representatives. The nobility + the merchants (the commoners) formed the 1^st House of Commons.  These commoners would have stayed away if they could have: they did not want to pay taxes.)

Hundred Years' War  (1337-1453)  (A series of wars between England and France fought in France with intervals of relative peace during 116 years) (French-Scottish Alliance against the English-Burgundian alliance)

§  England fighting to get her old French territories back,  at first English successes: Crécy (1346) + Poitiers (1356)    (Shakespeare’s Agincourt, movie: Jean D’Arc)

·  1348 Black Death (pestis - 1/3 of the society is killed) ® not enough peasants ® situation of peasants improves

·  new taxes ® Peasant’s Revolt

·  End of the war: English Crown lost all its possessions in France (except for the port city of Calais)

§  John Wycliffe translates the Bible into English in 1390! (Severe censorship laws issued against it.)

§  Chaucer writes the Canterbury Tales (1390s)

Wars of the Roses  (1455-85)  

§  War between the royal Houses of York and Lancaster for the throne for 30 years (Shakespeare: Henry VI)

§  Only about ten per cent of the population was involved in the fights

§  Entire noble families die out ® their lands are inherited by the king then sold to the new merchant class ® creation of a new nobility of lesser gentry and merchants (powerbase of the Tudor House!)

§  Henry VII (Henry Tudor - from Wales) is the final victor (defeated and killed Richard III of the House of York )

End of the Medieval Period in England – Modern England

Henry VIII

Elizabeth I

§  End of serfdom, feudalism  (men were no longer tied to the land)

§  Growth of the middle classes  (power of towns increased through trade)

§  Printing press!  (ends the Church's monopoly on learning)

§  Higher classes start speaking English  (instead of French)

§  Strengthening national identity

§  Military successes  (against Scotland, Ireland, Spain, etc)

Henry VIII  (1509-47) 

§  Henry is desperate for a son to ensure the throne!  (The memory of the Wars of the Roses was all too recent…) He wants to divorce Catherine of Aragon (she is the aunt of the Spanish Emperor) and to marry a new wife to bear him a son.  The pope refuses to allow the divorce.  (Henry had 6 wives all together.) ® (movie: Anne of the Thousand Days)

§  Political break with the pope ®

§  Establishes the Anglican Church ® appoints himself as the head of the Church (Act of Supremacy approved by Parliament in 1534) (® Becoming the enemy of the Pope entails a change in political alliances and enemies!)

§  Not real reformation! ® Henry continues to burn Protestants (However, a positive development is that an English translation of the Bible replaces the Latin Bibles in every church.)

§  Independence from the pope ® church tax stayed in England! (The pope was “controlled” by the Spanish Emperor: Charles V  English church tax had been going straight into his pockets…It made sense to stop that.)

§  Henry closed and sold the monasteries and church lands ®  incredible wealth for the king (e.g. financed his foreign policy)!  (502 monasteries, 136 cloisters, 187 friaries = 825…) Affected every village in England!  Referred to as the “greatest act of official destruction in English history". (The monasteries used to be the centres of religous life, education, and poor relief.  Closing them down was a mojor set back in the lives of millions.)

§  Foreign policy:

·  Defeats the Scottish (but cannot conquer Scotland) 

·  Direct rule of Ireland begins (first English king to become king of all Ireland)

·  Union with Wales (1536)

·  Foundation of the Royal Navy  

Elizabeth I - Golden Age (1558-1603)    (movie: Elizabeth)

§  A mild form of protestantism (little different from Catholicism) spreads under Elizabeth.  (Main differences from the Roman Catholic Church: Does not acknowledge the pope, ministers are allowed to marry, images were banned from churches, and only 2 sacraments: Holy Communion, Baptism) 

§  Huge sheep farms + textile industry ® factories;  Textile industry a very profitable business ® to increase pasture lands: enclosures of common lands begin ® peasants are helpless (many become landless, no longer self-sufficient, emigration, consumer society…) ® factories

§  Renaissance in arts: (Literature:  William Shakespeare (the Globe Theatre is built), Edmund Spenser, John Milton, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Philip Sidney, etc.  Music: Thomas Ravenscroft, Thomas Morley;  Philosophy: Sir Thomas More, Sir Francis Bacon) 

§  Spain is the big rival ® 1588 Spanish Armada (130 ships with 30,000 soldiers) is defeated by the English ® Balance of power changes ® England becomes a world power!

§  Great trading companies are established (East India Company: tea, spices, cotton, etc, Levant Co. with the Turks, Africa Co: slave trade, Eastland Co. with Japan) 

§  England soon dominates the world's trade routes (Pirate ships: Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins, etc.)

James I

Charles I

James I  (1603 - 25)

James Stuart, the king of Scotland, was a nephew of Elizabeth I. He  inherited the English throne, becoming the joint ruler of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.

§  Personal union with Scotland  (Common king but separate Scottish parliament, judiciary and church)

§  Wants to rule by “Divine Right” (without Parliament)

§  Survived several assasination attempts (e.g. Gunpowder Plot, 1605. Staged by Catholics who wanted to bring back Catholicism and do away with the Anglican Church.  Failure of the attempt is celebrated every November 5th as Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night.) 

§  Strong Puritan Revival in England among Members of Parliament and wealthy, literate classes!  ® Change in thinking in all fields of life (about political rights, how church services should be  changed – purified…, etc.) ® Conflict with the establishment!  ® they ask for Anglican bishops to be removed to reform the church ® the king refused saying: “No bishop, no king.” (The only effective way to control, inform and manipulate the people was through an authoritarian church hierarchy subject to the king. The Puritans wanted to do away with that very system.)

§  Puritans flee to America to have freedom of religion! (Mayflower ship, 1620) ® First English colonies in America; New translation of the Bible into English: King James Version (1611)   ( Károli Gáspár translation: 1590)

New colonies / territories:

Virginia

Bermuda

Ulster

New England – James town

Protestant settlements in Northern Ireland

Charles I  (1625 - 49)

§  Ruled without convening the Parliament (taxed the Irish + borrowed money from English bankers and wealthy aristocrats)

§  Tries to force the Scots to submit to the Anglican Church ® war ® beaten by the Scots ® needs money from Parliament to pay the Scots in return for peace (11 years of absolute rule ends, king convenes parliament to raise money for the Scots)

§  Ireland explodes in rebellion against the Protestant English and Scottish settlers: King quarrels with Parliament over who should control the army  (the king or parliament?  Many MPs feared the king would turn the army against them first and invade Ireland only afterwards...) ®

§  1642 Civil War:  Royalists v. Parliamentarians ®  The king fled North to gather an army to defeat the rebellious MPs. Royalists (Cavaliers) controlled the northwest, Parliamentarians (‘Roundheads’) controlled the southeast with the capital, and the navy.  It is estimated that only about 10% of the population became involved in the fightings.

Oliver Cromwell

Charles II

James II

Queen Mary

William of Orange

Bill of Rights

Queen Anne

1645 Royalist army is defeated, King is captured 1649. Charles is executed ®  

England is a Republic (for the 1st and last time)  1649 - 60

Cromwell:  (1649 - 58)  (the head of the Parliamentarian Army)

§  Dissolves the House of Lords

§  Got rid of the Anglican Church ® Extreme Puritan rule (closed theatres, etc) through a military government

§  Invades Ireland (massacres the entire population of 2 towns for rebelling against the Protestants, pays his soldiers with the best Irish lands)

§  Invades Scotland (to punish them for declaring the son of  Charles, Charles II  king - most of Edinburgh Castle is destroyed)

New colonies / territories:

expansion in America

Jamaica      

Restoration ® Struggle over Catholicism  (The 2 sons of Charles I: Charles II and James II were both Catholic and wanted to put Catholics in government.  This understandibly led to trouble.)

Charles II  (1660-85)   (son of Charles I, grew up in Catholic France)

§  Acts of Cromwell's government cancelled

§  Black Plague (70.000 dead in London alone, 1665)

§  1666 London on fire: most of the city is destroyed ® rebuilding the capital starts  (Cristopher Wren rebuilds 50 churches: e.g. St Paul’s Cathedral)

§  King wants to allow freedom of religion to Catholics + Puritans ® (reaction of the Parliament: Test Act 1673 - 1829)

§  Test Act (1673) passed by Parliament: great discrimination against Catholics. It prevented any Catholic from holding public positions.

James II  (1685-88)

§  A Catholic king!  ® Annulled the Test Act ®

§  Put Catholics in the government

§  Tried to bring back Catholicism (beside the Anglican Church) ® fierce opposition in Parliament ®

§  Basis of the 2 party system:

Tories: supported the Crown (and James II) + the Anglican Church (ancestor of the modern Conservative Party, often used as a synonym for the Conservatives today)

Whigs: afraid of an absolute monarchy + for religious freedom (supported the deposition of James II and the invitation of Mary and William of Orange in 1688; tolerant towards the new Protestant religious groups, but not towards Catholics ® also support the Test Act)

§  Parliament decides to depose James II and invites his Protestant daughter: Mary + her husband William of Orange from Holland to (invade England and) take the throne!  This is referred to as the Glorious Revolution. (William came with a force of 15,000 soldiers landing in SW England on 5 November 1688.)

William III and Mary II  (joint monarchs)  (1689-1702)

§  Glorious Revolution 1688: glorious because it was a bloodless coup d'état in England, and revolutionary because Parliament decided to make Mary and William rulers in the place of James II (who fled to Ireland to raise a Catholic army against his daughter and son-in-law).  (By this act of Parliament its power was greatly increased leading to the Bill of Rights.) (In fact, the Glorious Revolution was not glorious since it was not bloodless: the two armies fought bloody battles in Ireland!  It was only bloodless in England!  But it was the English and Dutch armies fighting against the Irish and James.  And it was definitely not a revolution, at best "revolutionary"...)

§  Parliament becomes the overall power in the state: Bill of Rights (1689): made Britain a constitutional monarchy:  Real power belongs to the Parliament and not to the king!

·  The king cannot raise taxes or an army without the consent of Parliament

·  Catholics cannot vote

·  No Catholic can be king in England

§  1690 (Battle of the Boyne) King William defeats James's army in Ireland (The Irish were awfully punished by William of Orange for siding with James II: Penal laws introduced) The victory of William of Orange (King Billy) is commemorated every year as The Twelfth in Northern Ireland with Orangemen marching often through Catholic neighbourhoods, causing great tensions on the 12th of July.

§  War of Spanish Succession (1701-14) King William entered the war with his English-Dutch armies against the French King Louis XIV (and his grandson) to make sure that they would not inherit the entire Spanish Empire (as the dying Spanish king had bequeathed it to the duc d'Anjou).  The European Balance of Power was at stake! 

(King William sided with the Hapsburg Emperor and Hungarian King Leopold I who was also fighting to protect his dynastic claims to the Spanish throne.  The Treaty of Utrecht 1713 gave the Austrians the Spanish dominions in Italy and the Netherlands, and the Spanish Empire to the duc d'Anjou under the condition that he could not inherit the French throne. Thus the danger of the unification of France and Spain was averted and the balance of power preserved.  England was given Gibraltar and Minorca.)

Queen Anne   (1702-14)

§  1707 Act of Union with Scotland is passed after the English Parliament successfully cornered Scotland into this "arranged marriage" by passing several measures which restricted Anglo-Scottish trade and crippled the Scottish economy.  (The parliament in Edinburgh was suspended and Scottish Members of Parliament subsequently set in Westminster.  Scotland, however, kept her distinct Presbyterian Church, education and her legal system.)

® Great Britain is created

New colonies / territories:

Minorca

Gibraltar

Nova Scotia

Hudson Bay

George I 

George III

John Wesley

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Queen Victoria

Great Exhibition

George I   (1714-27)

§  The Act of Settlement (1701) made sure that only Protestants could inherit the English throne.  George I (the Duke of Hanover) was the closest Protestant relative of Queen Anne ® 1715. First Jacobite Uprising: wanted to put Queen Anne's brother, James (Jacob in Latin) on the throne, however he was excluded for being a Catholic. The rising - supported by the Scottish Highlanders and many Englishmen who disliked George I - failed, largely for a lack of strategy and organisation.

§  George I did not speak English and was hardly ever in England (spent most of his time in Hannover) ®

§  Left governing to his ministers  ® Britain's 1st prime minister  controlled the country (the Whig Robert Walpole).  The Prime Minister's power grew so much that English monarchs basically lost the influence over the composition of the Cabinet under George I and George II. 

George II  (1727-60)

§  War of the Austrian Succession (1740-8): George II sent his English troops against France to support Maria Theresa's claim for the Austrian and Hungarian throne, but his real concern was to keep the enemies out of Hanover and to safeguard the European balance of power.  (There was no considerable change of territory at the end of the war, only Silesia was ceded to Prussia.)

§  Jacobite Uprising (1745-6) called "The Forty-Five": led by the son of James Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Stuart pretender to the English and Scottish throne was almost successful in ousting George II  Prince Charlie invaded North England and was nearing London when his troops ran out of supplies and had to turn back to Scotland where they were beaten in the last battle ever fought on British soil (Culloden 1746)!

§  French and Indian War (also: Seven Years War 1756-63): fought between France and Britain over the posession of the fertile Ohio Valley in North America.  Ended with France loosing virtually all her posessions in North America (Canada) to the British.  Great Britain came out of the war as the most powerful colonial power in the world.  (In Europe British troops supported Prussia against Austria, France and Russia.  The British also fought the French with success in the Caribbean, the Philippines, Africa and India and won Florida from the Spanish!)

New colonies / territories:

Quebec 1759

Montreal

the Ohio Valley

Florida

Grenada

St Vincent and the Greanadines

Tobago

Dominica

George III  (1760-1820)

§  Agricultural Revolution:  Increasing mechanization (sowing machine, iron plough, threshing machine) of the farms ® increased efficiency: more food with the work of fewer peasants ® many became unemployed (could not sustain their families, their livelyhood is threatened) ® moved to towns offering employment in the new factories or to poorhouses/workhouses.  Enclosures of common lands which villagers used to hold in common (and split the produce) were "privatised" or enclosed by rich people who could afford the machines to work large tracts of land or wanted to extend their highly profitable sheepfarms. Villagers often had no alternative but to emigrate or move to a town where menial jobs were plentiful.

§  Industrial Revolution: Masses of landless workers (Former villagers are no longer self-sufficient ® can’t make their own clothes, household  goods, etc but need to buy it.) ® mass production needed and made possible by new inventions (steam engine, spinning machine,...) ® the peasants crowd into the industrial centres to work in the factories.  

Britain bacame the no 1. in iron producer in the world. To improve transport canals were dug all over Britain making the transport of produce and goods faster and cheaper.  As a result of the Industrial Revolution Britain was transformed from an agrarian society to the world's first industrial nation. 

§  Colonization of India (after defeating the French in India in the Seven Years War) ® England becomes the richest country in the world

§  Slave trade from West Africa to the West Indies (African slave workforce on the lucrative sugar plantations)

§  American War of Independence 1775-83  (Britain had raised taxes without the consent of the American colonies ®  July 4th, 1776 American Declaration of Independence)

Lost colonies:

13 US colonies

§  First British convict ships are sent to Australia (January 26th, 1788. Celebrated as a national holiday in Australia...), the colonization of Australia begins

New colonies / territories:

India

Burma

Australia 1788 (New South Wales)

§  Act of Union with Ireland 1800.  (England had controlled parts of Ireland since the 1170s, then started colonizing the island with Protestant settlers in the 16th and early 17th centuries.  Ireland saw its darkest period under Cromwell's invasion and in the decades following the Penal Laws introduced under William of Orange. After repeated attempts failed (the last being the 1798 uprising) to rid  themselves of English rule,) the Irish Parliament was suspended in 1800 in the Act of Union.

§  It is fascinating that neither the loss of the American colonies (1783) nor the French Revolution, or the large scale enclosures forcing the poor people off their lands could spark a revolution in Britain.  Historians say that the evangelical revival spread by the Methodists among the new working classes, as well as the wealth pouring in from India were responsible for diverting people's attention from their miserable living conditions and safeguarding England from a revolution.

§  The evangelical revival  was led by John Wesley (an Anglican priest and profesor at Oxford) the founder of the Methodism (tens of thousands were converted as a result of his preachings: ~130.000!).  He never left the Anglican Church.  

§  Humanitarian legislation (limiting child labour to 12 hours a day, children under 9 were forbidden to work in factories,   1807 Slave-trade was abolished)

§  French and Napoleonic Wars: (1793 - 1803 - 1815): Victory at Trafalgar (1805): The British under Admiral Nelson defeat Napoleon's combined French and Spanish fleet in a famous victory (averting the threat of Napoleon's planned invasion of Britain)  In 1815 Napoleon's forces are beaten at Waterloo (a few kms from Brussels) by the Coaliton forces led by the Duke of Wellington.  The outcome: France was no longer a dominant power in Europe, Britain came out as one of the most powerful nations in the world thanks to its industrial economy and Navy.  (22 years of war between France and Britain were finally over.)

New colonies/ territories:

Malta

Sierra Leone

Cape Colony (S. Africa)

Ceylon

Singapore

Mauritius   

George IV  (1811-20: Prince Regent, 1820-30: king)

§  Manchester Massacre (1819): considered as one of the main events that led to the great reforms of the British electoral system some ten years later.  (Numerous industrial centres grew from tiny towns into crowded cities yet were still without any parliamentary representation.)  (The mass demonstration organized in August 1819 in Manchester aimed to demand representation for all males.  Urban working-class men were only given the vote in 1867...  The demonstrators were attacked by soldiers on orders of the local magistrates who feared the outbreak of a rebellion.  400 women, children and men were badly injured and 11 died.  Instead of supressing the reform movement, the massacre had the opposite effect, giving way to the Chartist movement of the following decades.)

§  Britain's empire is becoming political rather than commercial

§  1825 1st train Stockton – Darlington  (1830 Manchester - Liverpool)

§  Catholic Emancipation Act:  reverses the Test Act: (1829) Catholics can take public positions (first since 1673)

William IV  (1830-7)

§  Reform Act (1832): Middle class males receive the vote (+ 41 towns got representation for the first time)

§  Slavery (slave ownership) is abolished (1833) (slave trade was abolished in 1807)

Queen Victoria (1837-1901) Empress of India (1877-1901) 

§  Great industrial + colonial expansion: a period of imprtant social, economic, and technological change

§  Britain is the workshop of the world: (like China is today..."Made in China" on every second product) the British could produce goods so cheaply and effectively that they would even undersell locally made products in foreign countries...

§  New Imperialism: new colonies founded especially in Africa in order to supply cheap raw materials for Britain and also to become the markets of the goods made in England 

§  Chartist movement: millions of workers signed charters demanding further reform of the electoral process (vote for all adults - not just middle class males, secret vote, equal and fair electoral districts, salary for poor MPs, etc) ® mass demonstrations, chartist leaders are arrested  (The vote was not given to urban working-class men until 1867)

§  Railway boom ® Trains revolutionized transport of goods and of people, making it much quicker and cheaper - greatly impacting society from opening new horizons in the economy to how leasure time was spent as well as helping political reform to spread.

§  Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, Crystal Palace (1851): (1st world expo) “Britain is the workshop of the world!”, exhibitions from every country, especially from the British Empire (6 million visitors thanks to the railways and cheep enterance fees.  The profit went to found the Victoria and Albert Museum and endowed several colleges.)

§  1st underground in the world (London 1863) ® 2nd: Budapest (1896)!

Liberalism and humanitarian legislation:

§  Working class lived and worked in awful, unhealthy conditions: children age 5  and 6 were already made to work 12 to 16 hour a day in mines and factories (PM Peel: “Britain wouldn’t survive on a 10 hour workday.”) ® reports made public ® parliamentary committees ®

§  Abolition of child and woman labour in mines

§  Sanitation reforms

§  Working class gets the vote (male householders in towns, 1867), farmers can vote (1884)

§  Free compulsory education (1870) (up to age 11)  

§  Secret voting introduced (1872)

Imperial ambitions (shameful wars):

§  Opium wars with China: very profitable for Britain

§  Invading Afghanistan (British fought 3 bloody battles there, losing each one against Russo-Afghan forces)

§  India comes under direct rule (after a mutiny in 1857, instead of being governed by the East India Company)

§  Crimean War fought against Russia (1853-56) to keep Russia from making advances in Asia (threatening British interests if occupying parts of Afghanistan and India)  The British-French-Turkish forces won, (but more than 25.000 British soldiers died - mainly of starvation and cold...)

§  Suez Canal (1875): PM Disraeli buys half of the Suez shares to secure Britain's waterway to India ® British occupation of Egypt in 1882.

§  Boer Wars (1899-1902) ® enormously extended Britain's influence in Africa (but half a million soldiers were needed to beat the Boers, Dutch settlers north of Cape Colony, S. Africa)

New colonies / territories:

New Zealand

Gambia

Hong Kong

India (incl. Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, 1857)

Ghana

Cyprus (1878)

Egypt (1882-36-56)

Sudan

Uganda

Zimbabwe

South Africa (1885)

Kenya, Botswana

Malawi

Kuwait

Burma

Afghanistan

Became a Dominion:

Canada (1867)

Edward VII  (1901-10)    decline of the Empire

§  Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand become dominions (almost complete autonomy, but only the white settler colonies!)  They could draw up their own constitutions, conduct their own foreign affairs, defence and international trade - however only Britain could declare war (and the dominions would have to send their troops to help British troops, as in World War I).

Became Dominions: 

Australia (1901)

New Zealand (1907)

South Africa (1910)

§  Balance of power begins to collapse: Germany and the USA built stronger industries and armies than Britain!

§  Triple Antant (1907) Britain + France + Japan + Russia

(The House of Hanover was changed to House of Windsor in 1917 because in World War I when Britain and Germany were enemies it did not sound too well for the royal house to have a German name.)

George V   (1910 - 36)  

§  The House of Lords is deprived of its veto power in financial decisions: only power to delay legislation for 3 parliamentary sessions!  (1911)

§  Trade Unions grow in number and membership: many strikes (miners, dockers, railwaymen) ® 

§  First Minimum Wage Act, insurance against sickness and unemployment (but no free health care until 1948)

§  World War I ®  Allied Powers (Britain, France, Russia, USA) defeated the Central Powers (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Ottoman Empire) (the British army had 250,000 soldiers in 1914 and 5 million in 1918!)  British casulties were almost 3 million, referred to as "the lost generation"!

§  Britain was one of the Big Four – Lloyd George, Wilson, Clemenceau, and Orlando – to redraw the map of Europe at the Paris Peace Treaty: Britain incorporates the former German colonies in Africa, Palestine and Iraq from the Turks

§  The British Empire is the largest empire ever in world history

The Empire is bigger than ever in 1920:

25% of the world's surface and 1/3 of the world's population

§  Paris Peace Conference: US disapproves of colonialism ® Britain had to agree to help her colonies towards self-government (but in fact, the Empire becomes bigger than ever, and the British will not start decolonisation until 1947 when India gains independence)

§  Positive developments: a strong sense of the country's obligation and responsibility to its citizens: social reforms

·  PM Lloyd George promises to build "a land fit for heroes to live in": Housing Act (1919) inner-city slums are taken down (not fully!) ®  towns planned, affordable council housing (blocks of flats)  for the poor

·  Women over 30 get the vote (1919)

·  Poor school children are given free meals and medical examination

§  Depression: economic crisis, very high unemployment, falling wages ® unsuccessful General Strike (1926)

§  BBC is founded (1922, British Broadcasting Corporation; regular TV service from 1936, suspended during WWII)

§  Rise of the Labour party (1924,  1st Labour government!)

New colonies/ territories (some former German colonies):

Palestine (1920-48)

Tanganyika

Namibia

New Guinea

Cameroon

Togo

Tanzania

Iraq (1922-32)

Became a Dominion:

Irish Free State (1922)

§  1931 (Statute of Westminster) The British Commonwealth of Nations is set up for ex-British colonies and dominions: an association of equal, independent nations (and of British dependencies: Bermuda, Falklands, Gibraltar).  Members have special links with Britain and each other:

·  Trade:  Special trade agreements and privileges (kept Britain from joining the EEC)

·  Sports:  Commonwealth Games every 4 years (~Olympics on a smaller scale)

·  Politics:   Commonwealth Forces in World War II, today heads of government meat every 2 years 

George VI  (1936-52)

Appeasement of Germany (German expansion tolerated in order to avoid war - until September 1939)

World War II: Britain fighting to save the balance of power in Europe

§  British Empire was left alone fighting Germany after France is occupied by Hitler (May 1940 until 1941)

§  Germans bomb British cities in preparation for an invasion (the Blitz/Battle of Britain: Aug 1940-41 May): millions of homeless, but British war casualties are much fewer than in WWI

§  Britain was one of the Big Three – Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin – to redraw the map of Europe

§  World War II undermined Britain's already weakened commercial and financial leadership ® it is too expensive to keep up the Empire 

§  UN Charter (1945) calls for progress toward self-government for the colonies – The British Empire can't last very long ®

Queen Elizabeth II

Margaret Thatcher

Tony Blair

Labour Government: (1945 - 51)   

§  Rebuilding the economy and infrastructure from Marshall Aid from the USA (Out of the 15 countries that received the $12 billion Marshall Aid Britain received the most: $ 3300 million.)

    Immigrants were welcome from the Empire to help in the rebuilding

§  Welfare state established: National Health Service (free medical and hospital care for everyone regardless of their income)         

§  Nationalization (Coal, Steel, Transportation)                                             

§  Free secondary education for all                          

§  NATO (1949): Britain leads space research, nuclear weapons design, builds the 1^st nuclear power station in the world

Lost colonies / territories:

Iraq (1945)

India (1947)

Pakistan

Myanmar

Bangladesh

Palestine (1948)

Sri Lanka

Elizabeth II  (1952 - )                

§  1956 Suez crisis: turning point! (Britain, France and Israel attack Egypt for nationalizing the Suez Canal = oil + route to India) USA forces Britain to back out from Egypt, Britain is humiliated  ® Britain is no longer viewed as superpower, an equal with the USA and the USSR !!

® Many  countries begin to challenge Britain's authority                     

® Political debate in Britain on its new international role             

§  1957 European Economic Community (EEC) is created  - but Britain refuses to join! 

   (Not wanting to surrender any control over her own affairs such as giving up preferential trade with the Commonwealth or Britain's overseas military bases ...Britain later regrets not having joined, and 10 years later applies for membership, only to be rejected by the French.)

§  1960 PM Macmillan after his visit to Africa begins to speed up plans to hand over power

Lost colonies / territories:

Egypt (1954)

Suez Canal (1956)

Ghana

Malaysia

1960-66: Uganda, Cyprus, Kuwait, Kenya, Sudan, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malta, Singapore, Tanzania, Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica

§  1945-66:  500 million people became self-governing ®

§  British pull-out from her colonies happened peacefully (except for Kenya and Cyprus). Many of the new independent countries chose to remain on friendly terms with Britain.  All the old colonies were invited to join as free and equal members to the Commonwealth:  54 independent nations + Bermuda, Falklands + Gibraltar (~1.7 billion people)

§  1967  Britain trys to join the EEC – de Gaulle vetoes it

§  1950s  250.000 black immigrants invited (!) from former colonies in the West Indies ® Race riots (Nottingham and Notting Hill) (® 1962 a quota scheme was introduced)

The Wilson Governments instituted a series of permissive measures, broadly reflecting the changing social climate at home. These include the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which decriminalised homosexual practices above the age of 18; the 1967 Abortion Act, which legalised abortion under certain conditions; and the 1969 Divorce Reform Act, which relaxed the conditions surrounding the termination of marriage.

§  1960 - 70s  severe economic problems  

§  Liberal social legislation:  (1967) Homosexuality and abortion are legalised (not in Northern Ireland), The Pill is introduced, Equal pay for women (1975)

§  1973 Britain joins the European Community (Britain is still unenthusiastic!  Trade with Europe greatly increased!!) 

§  Already in 1975 a referendum (actually the 1st referendum in British history!) was held by the new Labour Government whether to stay in the EC

§  Spiraling inflation + growing unemployment; deep cuts in public spending, major strikes ® Winter of Discontent (1978)

§  Elections 1979: won by the Conservative Margaret Thatcher

Lost colony:

Bahamas (1973)

The Thatcher Years (1979 - 1990)         Conservative Government

§  New enterprise economy: (state should not interfere in business) privatised many national industries: British Coal, British Gas, British Petroleum, British Rail, British Steel, British Leyland, British Shipbuilders, British Airways, and British Telecom.  Deindustrialization (closing down of factories and mines) was a major source of growing unemployment especially in Northern England and Southern Wales (that in turnn led to an increase in poverty, crime, alcoholism and suicide.)

§  Reduced the power of trade unions by laws (Called the Iron Lady owing to her handling of the Miners' Strike in 1984)

§  Encouraged people not to rely on the welfare state (but pay for their own health care, education, and pensions, and buy the council flat they were living in)

§  Cut taxes (helping those already wealthy)

§  Reduced inflation and government spending

§  Falklands War in 1982 (successfully defended British interest in retaking the Falkland Islands having been unexpectedly invaded under orders of the Argentinian Dictator Galtieri.  The Falklands War helped Thatcher to win the 1983 General Elections, and Argentina to become a democratic country.)

§  By 1985: 5 million recent immigrants

§  IRA bombing campaign demanding an end to British rule in Northern Ireland andthe reunification of Ireland

§  Anglo-Irish Agreement: (1985) gave the Irish Republic an advisory role in Northern Ireland's government and set out the conditions under which Northern Ireland could have devolved power again (NI Assembly reopened in Belfast)

Results of Thatcher's economic restructuring:

§  Split between the rich Conservative south-east of England and the rest of the country: a greater gap between the rich and the poor: 'North-South divide'

§  Decline of many British industries: a loss of Britain's traditional industries

§  Very high unemployment

Tony Blair (1997-)       Labour Government

§  (Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh Scotland to an English father and Irish Protestant mother.  He has a Catholic wife and their 4 children were also baptised and raised Catholics.  He spent his early childhood in Australia, upon moveing back to Britain he attended "the Eton of Scotland", Fettes College, then read law at St. John's College in Oxford.) 

§  Blair became the leader of the Labour Party in July 1994, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after winning the 1997 general election with a landslide (securing a majority of 179 MPs)  ending 18 years of Conservative government.

§  'New Labour':  major reform of the Labour party!  Instead of leftist economic policies of nationalisation New Labour supports the tenets of market economy. 

§  Foreign policy: 

·  UK forces fighting in Kosovo (1999), Sierra Leone (2000)

·  Number one ally of the USA in the War on Terror (2001) in Afghanistan then in Iraq

§  Domestic policy:

·  Priority: education (Spending on education was increased: number of teachers has been increased, primary school results have improved.)

·  Introduction of tuition fees for university (top-up fees up to £3,000, but grants promised to poorest students) (highly controversial!)

·  Increased spending on the National Health Service (NHS): (Hospital waiting lists are at their lowest since 1987 and the number of doctors and nurses has been increased)

·  Britain’s 1st National Minimum Wage Act (improved the living standards of 1.5 million people – much more was expected…)

·  Anti-terrorism legislation enacted in Britain

·  Independence for the Bank of England to set the interest rate (the Government had been regularly manipulating interest rates before elections to improve statistics - not good for the economy) 

·  Good Friday Agreement (1998): Blair achieved a breakthrough in the negotiations with the Northern Irish parties (that had begun under M. Thatcher and John Major, but had repeatedly broke down).  Northern Ireland had her parliament devolved (1st since 1972) with a coalition government heading the executive composed of both Protestants and Catholics. (First Minister: David Trimble, representing the Protestant community and Deputy First-minister: Seamus Mallon for the Catholic Community)  

·  1997 : Referendum in Scotland and Wales (majority vote in favour of Devolution: self-government! Transfer of power over domestic affairs from London back to Edinburgh  and Cardiff!

·  1999  Establishment of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament

§  Reform of the House of Lords: (1999) number of hereditary peers was drastically reduced

§  Greater London Authority established (2000) (London was finally given her own local government again, after 14 years of no local authority in the capital!  M. Thatcher had closed it down in 1986.)

§  Establishment of an independent New Supreme Court

Lost colony:

Hong Kong (1997)