Anglo-Saxon England The Kingdom of England emerged from the gradual unification of the early medieval
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms known as the
Heptarchy:
East Anglia,
Mercia,
Northumbria,
Kent,
Essex,
Sussex, and
Wessex. The
Viking invasions of the 9th century upset the balance of power between the English kingdoms, and native Anglo-Saxon life in general. The English lands were unified in the 10th century in a reconquest completed by 927. During the Heptarchy, the most powerful king among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms might become acknowledged as
Bretwalda, a
high king over the other kings. The decline of Mercia allowed Wessex to become more powerful, absorbing the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex in 825. The
kings of Wessex increasingly dominated the other kingdoms of England during the 9th century. In 827, Northumbria submitted to
Egbert of Wessex at
Dore, briefly making Egbert the first king to reign over a united England. In 886,
Alfred the Great retook London, which he apparently regarded as a turning point in his reign. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that "all of the English people (
all Angelcyn) not
subject to the Danes submitted themselves to King Alfred." Asser added that "Alfred, king of the Anglo-Saxons, restored the
city of London splendidly ... and made it habitable once more." Alfred's restoration entailed reoccupying and refurbishing the nearly deserted Roman walled city, building
quays along the
Thames, and laying a new city street plan. On 12 July 927 the monarchs of Britain gathered at
Eamont Bridge, now in Cumbria, to recognise Æthelstan as king of the English. The title "King of the English" or
Rex Anglorum in Latin, was first used to describe Æthelstan in
one of his charters in 928. The standard title for monarchs from Æthelstan until
John was "King of the English". During the following years Northumbria repeatedly changed hands between the English kings and the Norwegian invaders, but was definitively brought under English control by
Eadred in 954, completing the unification of England. In 1018,
Lothian, a portion of the northern half of Northumbria
Bernicia was ceded to the
Kingdom of Scotland. (1014–1035) England has remained in political unity ever since. During the reign of
Æthelred the Unready (978–1016), a new wave of Danish invasions was orchestrated by
Swein Forkbeard, King of Denmark, culminating after a quarter-century of warfare in the Danish conquest of England in 1013. But Sweyn died on 2 February 1014, and Æthelred was restored to the throne. In 1015, Sweyn's son
Cnut (commonly known as Canute) launched a new invasion. The ensuing war ended with an agreement in 1016 between Canute and Æthelred's successor,
Edmund Ironside, to divide England between them, but Edmund's death on 30 November of that year left England united under Danish rule. This continued for 26 years until the death of
Harthacnut in June 1042. He was the son of Canute and
Emma of Normandy (the widow of Æthelred the Unready) and had no heirs of his own; he was succeeded by his half-brother, Æthelred's son,
Edward the Confessor.
Norman Conquest The peace lasted until the death of the childless Edward in January 1066. His brother-in-law was crowned
King Harold, but his cousin
William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, immediately claimed the throne for himself. William launched an invasion of England and landed in
Sussex on 28 September 1066. Harold and his army were in
York following their victory against the Norwegians at the
Battle of Stamford Bridge (25 September 1066) when the news reached him. He decided to set out without delay and confront the Norman army in Sussex so marched southwards at once, despite the army not being properly rested following the battle with the Norwegians. The armies of Harold and William faced each other at the
Battle of Hastings (14 October 1066), in which the English army, or
Fyrd, was defeated, Harold and his two brothers were slain, and William emerged as victor. William was then able to conquer England with little further opposition. He was not, however, planning to absorb the Kingdom into the
Duchy of Normandy. As a mere duke, William owed allegiance to
Philip I of France, whereas in the independent Kingdom of England he could rule without interference. He was crowned on 25 December 1066 in
Westminster Abbey, London.
High Middle Ages In 1092,
William II led an invasion of
Strathclyde, a
Celtic kingdom in what is now southwest Scotland and Cumbria. In doing so, he annexed what is now the county of
Cumbria to England. In 1124,
Henry I ceded what is now southeast Scotland (called
Lothian) to the
Kingdom of Scotland, in return for the King of Scotland's loyalty. This final cession established what would become the traditional
borders of England which have remained largely unchanged since then (except for occasional and temporary changes). This area of land had previously been a part of the Anglian
Kingdom of Northumbria. Lothian contained what later became the Scottish capital,
Edinburgh. This arrangement was later finalized in 1237 by the
Treaty of York.
at Runnymede in 1215, surrounded by his baronage. Illustration from Cassell's History of England'', 1902. The
Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland took place during the late 12th century, when
Anglo-Normans gradually conquered and acquired large swathes of land from the Irish, over which England then claimed sovereignty, all allegedly sanctioned by the Papal bull
Laudabiliter. At the time,
Gaelic Ireland was made up of several kingdoms, with a
High King claiming lordship over most of the other kings. The
Duchy of Aquitaine came into
personal union with England upon the accession of
Henry II, who had married
Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine. They remained united until
John Lackland, Henry II's son and fourth-generation descendant of William the Conqueror, lost the continental possessions to
Philip II of France decisively after the
Battle of Bouvines in 1214. A few remnants of
Normandy, including the
Channel Islands, remained in John's possession, together with most of the Duchy of Aquitaine.
Conquest of Wales Up until the Norman Conquest of England, Wales had remained for the most part independent of the
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, although some Welsh kings did sometimes acknowledge the
Bretwalda. Soon after the
Norman Conquest of England, however, some Norman lords began to attack Wales. They conquered and ruled parts of it, acknowledging the overlordship of the Norman kings of England but with considerable local independence. Over many years these "
Marcher Lords" conquered more and more of Wales, against considerable resistance led by various Welsh princes, who also often acknowledged the overlordship of the Norman kings of England.
Edward I defeated
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and his brother,
Dafydd ap Gruffudd, and so effectively conquered Wales, in 1282. He created the title
Prince of Wales for his heir, the future
Edward II, in 1301. Edward I's conquest was brutal and the subsequent repression considerable, as the magnificent Welsh
castles such as
Conwy,
Harlech, and
Caernarfon attest.
Late Middle Ages Edward III was the first English king to have a
claim to the throne of France. His pursuit of the claim resulted in the
Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), which pitted five kings of England of the
House of Plantagenet against five kings of France of the
Capetian House of Valois. Extensive naval raiding was carried out by all sides during the war, often involving
privateers such as John Hawley of Dartmouth or the Castilian
Pero Niño. Though the English won numerous victories, they were unable to overcome the French's numerical superiority and their strategic use of gunpowder weapons. England was defeated at the
Battle of Formigny in 1450 and finally at the
Battle of Castillon in 1453, retaining only a single town in France,
Calais. During the Hundred Years' War an
English identity began to develop in place of the previous division between the Norman lords and their
Anglo-Saxon subjects. This was a consequence of sustained hostility to the increasingly nationalist French, whose kings and other leaders (notably the charismatic
Joan of Arc) used a developing sense of French identity to help draw people to their cause. The kingdom had little time to recover before entering the
Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), a series of civil wars over possession of the throne between the
House of Lancaster (whose heraldic symbol was the red rose) and the
House of York (whose symbol was the white rose), each led by different branches of the descendants of Edward III. The end of these wars found the throne held by the descendant of an initially illegitimate member of the House of Lancaster, married to the eldest daughter of the House of York:
Henry VII and
Elizabeth of York.
Tudor period Wales retained a separate legal and administrative system, which had been established by
Edward I in the late 13th century. The country was divided between the
Marcher Lords, who gave feudal allegiance to the crown, and the
Principality of Wales. Under the Tudor monarchy,
Henry VIII replaced the laws of Wales with those of England (under the
Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542). Wales was incorporated into England, and henceforth was represented in
the Parliament. (1588), depicted in the background. Elizabeth's international power is symbolised by the hand resting on the globe. During the 1530s, Henry overthrew the power of the Catholic Church within the kingdom,
replacing the pope as head of his own English Church and seizing the Catholic Church's lands, thereby facilitating the creation of a
variation of Catholicism that became more Protestant over time. This aligned England with Scotland, which also gradually adopted a Protestant religion, whereas the most important continental powers, France and
Spain, remained Catholic. The "
Tudor conquest" (or
reconquest) of Ireland' took place under the Tudor dynasty. Following a
failed rebellion against the crown by
Silken Thomas, the
Earl of Kildare, in the 1530s, Henry VIII was declared
King of Ireland in
1542 by statute of the
Parliament of Ireland, with the aim of restoring such central authority as had been lost throughout the country during the previous two centuries.
Calais, the last remaining continental possession of the Kingdom, was lost in 1558, during the reign of
Philip and
Mary I. Their successor,
Elizabeth I, consolidated the new and increasingly Protestant
Church of England. She also began to build up the kingdom's
naval strength, on the foundations Henry VIII had laid down. By 1588, her new navy was strong enough to defeat the
Spanish Armada, which had sought to invade England to halt English support for the
Dutch rebels and to put a Catholic monarch on the throne in her place.
Early modern history The House of Tudor ended with the death of Elizabeth I on 24 March 1603.
James I ascended the throne of England and brought it into personal union with the Kingdom of Scotland. Despite the
Union of the Crowns, the kingdoms remained separate and independent states: a state of affairs which lasted for more than a century.
Civil War and Interregnum ''.
Oliver Cromwell united the whole of the
British Isles by force and created the
Commonwealth of England. The Stuart kings overestimated the power of the English monarchy, and were cast down by Parliament in 1645 and 1688. In the first instance,
Charles I's introduction of new forms of taxation in defiance of Parliament led to the
English Civil War (1641–1645), in which the king was defeated, and to the abolition of the monarchy under
Oliver Cromwell during the
Interregnum of 1649–1660. After the
trial and
execution of Charles I in January 1649, the
Rump Parliament passed an
act declaring England to be a Commonwealth on 19 May 1649. The monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished, and so the House of Commons became a unitary legislative chamber with a new body, the
Council of State becoming the executive. However the Army remained the dominant institution in the new republic and the most prominent general was
Oliver Cromwell. The Commonwealth fought
wars in Ireland and
Scotland which were subdued and placed under Commonwealth military occupation. Meanwhile, relations with the
Dutch Republic had deteriorated. Despite initial English support during the Dutch War of Independence against the Spanish, tensions arose as the Dutch Republic emerged as England's principal commercial and naval rival. By the mid-17th century, it had become the foremost trading nation. In response the English, alarmed by their waning competitiveness, implemented stricter trading policies to curb Dutch dominance. The
First Anglo-Dutch War which followed, however, failed to resolve the commercial issues. In April 1653 Cromwell and the other
Grandees of the
New Model Army, frustrated with the members of the
Rump Parliament who would not pass legislation to dissolve the Rump and to allow a new more representative parliament to be elected, stopped the Rump's session and declared the Rump dissolved. After an experiment with a Nominated Assembly (
Barebone's Parliament), the Grandees in the Army, through the Council of State imposed a new constitutional arrangement under a written constitution called the
Instrument of Government. Under the Instrument of Government executive power lay with a
Lord Protector (an office to be held for the life of the incumbent) and there were to be triennial Parliaments, with each sitting for at least five months. Article 23 of the Instrument of Government stated that Oliver Cromwell was to be the first Lord Protector. The Instrument of Government was replaced by a second constitution (the
Humble Petition and Advice) under which the Lord Protector could nominate his successor. Cromwell nominated his son
Richard who became Lord Protector on the death of Oliver on 3 September 1658.
Restoration and Glorious Revolution . Richard proved to be ineffectual and was unable to maintain his rule. He resigned his title and retired into obscurity. The Rump Parliament was recalled and there was a second period where the executive power lay with the Council of state. But this restoration of Commonwealth rule, similar to that before the Protectorate, proved to be unstable, and the exiled claimant,
Charles II, was
restored to the throne in 1660. In 1665 the unresolved commercial issues with the Dutch led to the
Second Anglo-Dutch War, which culminated in the disastrous
Raid on the Medway and forced the humiliated Charles in to an
unfavourable peace treaty. The treaty eliminated a number of long-standing issues, and in the long-term made it possible for the two countries to unite against the expansionist policies pursued by
Louis XIV of France. In the short-term however, Charles' desire to avenge this setback led to the
Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1672. Despite attaining French support this time, Dutch naval successes made Parliament unwilling to support Charles' war effort any further, and he was again forced to make peace. Following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, an attempt by
James II to reintroduce Roman Catholicism—a century after its suppression by the Tudors—led to the
Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which he was exiled by the Dutch prince
William of Orange. William and his wife
Mary II were subsequently crowned by Parliament. William reoriented England's foreign policy to support the Dutch Republic in its wars against Louis XIV of France.
Union with Scotland In the Scottish case, the attractions were partly financial and partly to do with removing English trade sanctions put in place through the
Alien Act 1705. The English were more anxious about the royal succession. The death of
William III in 1702 had led to the accession of his sister-in-law
Anne to the thrones of England and Scotland, but her only surviving child had died in 1700, and the English
Act of Settlement 1701 had given the succession to the English crown to the Protestant
House of Hanover. Securing the same succession in Scotland became the primary object of English strategic thinking towards Scotland. By 1704, the
Union of the Crowns was in crisis, with the Scottish
Act of Security allowing for the Scottish Parliament to choose a different monarch, which could in turn lead to an independent foreign policy during a major European war. A
Treaty of Union was agreed on 22 July 1706, and following the
Acts of Union of 1707, which created the
Kingdom of Great Britain, the independence of the kingdoms of England and Scotland came to an end on 1 May 1707. The Acts of Union created a
customs union and
monetary union and provided that any "laws and statutes" that were "contrary to or inconsistent with the terms" of the Acts would "cease and become void". The English and Scottish Parliaments were merged into the
Parliament of Great Britain, located in
Westminster, London. At this point England ceased to exist as a separate political entity, and since then has had no national
government. The laws of England were unaffected, with the legal jurisdiction continuing to be that of
England and Wales, while Scotland continued to have its own laws and law courts. This continued after the
1801 union between the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, forming the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the
Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being
renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. == Government ==