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Beschreibung

History is always a popular subject and British history has created some of the most lively and fascinating stories there are! Britain as we know it today has been shaped by centuries of political turmoil between state and church, as well as international conflicts, making its history a fascinating insight into how modern Britain has emerged.

For this special, hardback edition of British History For Dummies, we’ve added over 100 black and white and colour photos for an even more explosive experience of British history.

British History For Dummies Illustrated Edition:

  • British history is still a major topic of interest, emphasised by the continual TV coverage and documentaries
  • Inside you’ll find rip-roaring stories of power-mad kings, executions, invasions, high treason, global empire-building and forbidden love- not bad for a nation of stiff upper lips!
  • Includes fascinating information in the fun For Dummies style- from the Stone Age right through to modern day Britain and everything in between!
  • Provides the ultimate British history experience and the hardback format with over 100 illustrations make it the perfect gift for amateur historians

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Seitenzahl: 810

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

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British History For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction
About This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organised
Part I: The British Are Coming!
Part II: Everyone Else Is Coming! The Invaders
Part III: Who’s in Charge Around Here? The Middle Ages
Part IV: Rights or Royals? The Tudors and Stuarts
Part V: On the Up: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Part VI: Don’t Look Down: The Twentieth Century
Part VII: The Part of Tens
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: The British Are Coming!
Chapter 1: So Much History, So Little Time
A Historical Tin of Beans – But Not Quite 57 Varieties
England
Scotland
Wales
Ireland
And all those little islands
How the UK Was Born
England: Head Honcho
The conquest of Scotland
The conquest of Wales
The conquest of Ireland
You’re Not From Round ’Ere – But Then Again, Neither Am I
Any such thing as a native Briton?
Immigrants
Whose History Is It Anyway?
Kings and queens
What about the workers?
A global story
Chapter 2: Sticks and Stone Age Stuff
What a Load of Rubbish! What Archaeologists Find
Going through the trash
Examining the tools
Looking at tribal societies of today
Uncovering Prehistoric Man
It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it
Why the ruckus?
The Stone Age
Hey, hey – we’re the monkeys! The Neanderthals
Meet your ancestors
Plough the Fields, Don’t Scatter – the Neolithic Revolution
Rolling Stones: A National Institution
Giving It Some Heavy Metal: The Bronze Age
And the bronze goes to . . .
Beakermania
Chapter 3: Woad Rage and Chariots: The Iron Age in Britain
The Iron Age: What It Was and How We Know What We Know
Written accounts from others
Look what I found down the bog: Bodies
Figuring Out Who These People Were
Looking for patterns
Celts in Britain? Maybe, maybe not
Life in Iron Age Britain
Warring tribes
Trading places
A touch of class
Bring me my chariot, and fire!
Hit the woad, Jack
This Is NOT a Hoax: The Belgians Are Coming!
More Blood, Vicar? Religion in the Iron Age
Ye gods!
Head cases
Sacrificing humans
Part II: Everyone Else Is Coming! The Invaders
Chapter 4: Ruled Britannia
A Far-Away Land of Which We Know Virtually Nothing
The Gallic Wars
Welcome to England!
They’re Back – with Elephants!
Caratacus fights the Romans
One angry lady – Boudica
Roman in the Gloamin’ – Agricola
‘And What Have the Romans Ever Given Us in Return?’
Sorry, no aqueducts
Another brick in the wall
Urban sprawl
Get your kicks on Route LXVI
All that foreign food
The Roman way of life
Saints alive! Christianity arrives!
Time to Decline and Fall . . . and Go
Trouble up North
Roman emperors, made in Britain
Gothic revival
Exit Romans, stage left
Chapter 5: Saxon, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll
They’re Coming from All Angles!
Welcome to our shores!
The Overlord of All Britain: Vitalinus the Vortigern
Disunited Kingdoms
Celtic kingdoms
Saxon kingdoms
We’re on a Mission from God
Keeping the faith to themselves: The British Christians
Sharing the faith: The Celtic Church
Enter the Roman Church
Winds of Change
The rise of Mercia
I don’t want to worry you, but I saw three ships come sailing in: The Vikings
Chapter 6: Have Axe, Will Travel: The Vikings
The Fury of the Norsemen
A pillaging we will go
Setting up base on the Isle of Man
Some Seriously Good Kings
Scotland the brave: Kenneth MacAlpin
We’ll poke your eye out in the hillsides: The Welsh
The English kings: Egbert, Alfred, and Athelstan
The Vikings Are Gone – Now What?
They’re back – and this time it’s personal
Showdown in Ireland
Scotland wasn’t much better
Cnut: Laying down the Danelaw
The Messy Successions Following Cnut
Kings for (just over) a day
Edward the Confessor
The men who would be king
Chapter 7: 1066 and All That Followed
The King is Dead, Long Live – er
King Harold – One in a Million, One in the Eye
Trouble on the not-too-distant horizon
The fightin’ fyrd
When Harry met Harry
Come on William, if you’re hard enough!
Norman mods and Saxon rockers: Battle at Hastings
William Duke of Normandy, King of England
Coronation chaos
Under new management
Mine, all mine! The feudal system
Scotland turns English
And Wales follows suit
But Ireland has a breather
The Church gets cross
William Dies and Things Go Downhill
Who wants to be a William heir?
William Rufus as king
Henry Beauclerc (a.k.a. Henry I) as king
Anarchy in the UK
Part III: Who’s in Charge Around Here? The Middle Ages
Chapter 8: England Gets an Empire
Meet the Family
Good lords! (Sacré bleu!)
England was nice, but France was home
Henry II and the Angevin Empire
A trek to Toulouse
The Big Match: England vs. Wales
Bad news for Ireland
All (fairly) quiet on the Scottish front
Henry the lawgiver
Murder in the Cathedral
Henry’s cunning plan . . . doesn’t work
Recipe for Instant Martyr
Royal Families and How to Survive Them
Richard I – the Lion King
A-crusading we will go
A king’s ransom
King John
The Pope goes one up
Er, I seem to have lost my empire
Magna Carta
Chapter 9: A Right Royal Time: The Medieval Realms of Britain
Basic Background Info
England – the French connection
Who was ruling what?
Simon Says ‘Make a Parliament, Henry!’
I’m the King of the Castles: Edward I
War for Wales
It’s hammer time: Scotland
You Say You Want a (Palace) Revolution: Edward II
A woman scorned
Careful! Some day your prince may come
Conquering France: The Hundred Years War and Edward III
Some battles
Conquering France again
Calamity Joan
Lancaster vs. York: The Wars of the Roses – a User’s Guide
House of Lancaster: Henrys IV, V, and VI
House of York: Edwards IV and V and Richard III
Guns ’n’ Roses
Chapter 10: Plague, Pox, Poll Tax, and Ploughing – and Then You Die
Benefits of the Cloth
What people believed in
The church service
Monastic orders
Medieval schools
Tending the sick: Medical care in the Middle Ages
The advanced thinkers
A rebel: John Wyclif and the Lollards
The Black Death
Death by plague
Dire diagnoses
The Prince and the Paupers: The Peasants’ Revolt
Laws to keep wages low
A poll tax
Showdown at Smithfield
Part IV: Rights or Royals? The Tudors and Stuarts
Chapter 11: Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown
Princes and Pretenders
Tricky Dicky, a.k.a. Richard III
Enter Henry Tudor – and a succession of pretenders
And Then Along Came Henry (the VIII, That Is)
Bad Ideas of the Sixteenth Century – No 1: Marrying Henry VIII
Edward VI, Queen Mary . . . and Jane Grey?
The Stewarts in a Stew
James IV attacks the English – and loses
A new king and another power struggle
Bad ideas of the sixteenth century – No 2: Marrying Mary, Queen of Scots
The First Elizabeth
The Virgin Queen vs. the not-so-virgin Mary
English sea dogs vs. the Spanish Armada
The seeds of an empire
Protestants in Ulster
Don’t let the sun go down on me
Chapter 12: A Burning Issue: The Reformation
Religion in the Middle Ages
The role of the Catholic Church
Enter the reformers
Back in England with Henry VIII
Breaking with Rome
Closing the monasteries
The Pilgrimage of Grace
The Church of England: More Protestant or More Catholic?
God’s on Our Side! – the Protestants and Edward VI
We’re on God’s side! – the Catholics and Queen Mary
A good beginning, then a few bad decisions
Come on Mary, light my fire
Elizabeth Settles It . . . or Does She?
The Catholics strike back and strike out
And the Protestants aren’t happy either
Scotland Chooses Its Path
Protestant uprising
Mary’s return to Scotland
James VI steps in and muddies the waters even more
Chapter 13: Crown or Commons?
The Stewarts Come South
Know your Puritans
Boom, shake the room – the Gunpowder Plot
James I fought the law and . . . who won?
Charles I
Buckingham’s palace?
Dissolving Parliament
Ireland, under Strafford’s thumb
Getting tough with Puritans – again
Parliament: It’s back and shows who’s boss
Civil War: Battle Hymns and a Republic
War stories
Can we join in? Enter the Irish and the Scots
The only good Stuart is a dead Stuart
Oliver!
Levellers levelled and Scots scotched
England becomes a republic
Ireland: The Curse of Cromwell
Restoration Tragi-Comedy
Charles II comes to England
Some relief for Catholics and Puritans alike
So, Who Won – the Crown or Parliament?
Chapter 14: Old Problems, New Ideas
The Renaissance: Retro Chic
Sweet music and palaces in air
Shakespeare: The good, the bard, and the ugly
It’s No Fun Being Poor
The Poor Laws
Crime or class war?
New Ideas
Let’s talk about religion . . .
A little bit of politics
Even science gets political
The appliance of science
Part V: On the Up: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Chapter 15: Let’s Make a Country
No Popery! No Wooden Shoes!
1688: Glorious(?) Revolution(?)
Going Dutch
The Bill of Rights
Ireland: King Billy of the Boyne
Bad heir day
Marlborough country
Making Great Britain: Making Britain Great?
England and Scotland: One king, two kingdoms
Glencoe – death at MacDonald’s
Act Two of Union: Scotland
Rebellions: The ’15 and the ’45
Ireland: Penal times
Act Three of Union: Ireland
George, George, George, and – er – George
The one and only, the original, George I
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the water – George II
The badness of George III
Completing your set of Georges
Whigs and Tories
Fighting the French: A National Sport
Round 1: War of the Spanish Succession 1701–14
Round 2: War of Captain Jenkins’s Ear 1739
Round 3: War of the Austrian Succession 1740–48
Round 4: The Seven Years’ War 1756–63
Chapter 16: Survival of the Richest: The Industrial Revolution
Food or Famine?
Problem: Fertiliser; Answer: Turnip
Baa baa black sheep, that’s a lot of wool
Reaching (en)closure
Getting Things Moving: Road Work
Trouble Over: Bridged Water
Revolutionising the Cloth Trade
The spinning jenny has landed
Things speed up even more
It’s (Not So) Fine Work, if You Can Get it: Life in the Factories
Trouble at t’mill
It were grim in them days
All Steamed Up
Do the Locomotion
Any Old Iron?
Tea, Sympathy, and the Slave Trade
Why Britain?
Chapter 17: Children of the Revolutions
Revolutions: Turning Full Circle or Half?
A British Civil War in America
How the trouble began
Things get nasty: From Boston to Concord
Declaring independence
The fight’s on
Calling it quits: The world turned upside down
The French Revolution
The nutshell version
Sounds good to us . . . we think
This means war! Britain and France at it again
Impeached for free speech: Restricting freedoms
Cruising for a bruising – Nelson
Bonaparte’s Spanish Ulcer: The Peninsular War
The Battle of Waterloo: Wellington boots out Napoleon
A British Revolution?
Sowing discontent: The Corn Law
What the protestors wanted
The Great Reform Act
Was THAT the British Revolution?
Chapter 18: Putting on My Top Hat – The Victorians
Queen Victoria
Prime Ministers and MPs of the Age
Sir Robert Peel – tragedy of a statesman
The Irish Famine
Peel forgets to check behind him
Lord Palmerston – send a gunboat!
Bill and Ben: The Gladstone and Disraeli show
Troubles at Home and Abroad
The People’s Charter
The Crimean War – not Britain’s finest hour
How Victorian Were the Victorians?
Did the upper classes really have the upper hand?
Were the Victorians really so cruel to children?
Were the Victorians really scared of sex?
Were Victorians really so religious?
Did the Victorians oppress women?
Things Can Only Get Better
Crystal Palace’s Great Exhibition
Two giants: Brunel and Darwin
Chapter 19: The Sun Never Sets – But It Don’t Shine Either
New World Order
Colonies in the New World
Hey, sugar sugar
India Taken Away
Black Hole in Calcutta
The Battle of Warren Hastings
Great game, great game!
This is mutiny, Mr Hindu!
Cook’s Tour: Australia and New Zealand
Opium? Just Say Yes: China
Wider Still and Wider: Scrambling for Africa
Zulu!
The wild Boers
One for you and two for me – cutting up Africa
The Colonies Grow Up – As Long As They’re White
Lion Tamers
What about the Irish?
The Anglo-Boer War: A hell of a lesson and a hell of a shock
Part VI: Don’t Look Down: The Twentieth Century
Chapter 20: The Great War: The End of Innocence – and Everything Else?
Indian Summer
Go easy on the ice
Not so quiet on the home front
Alliance Building
Loitering with entente
Going great guns – the naval race
Bullets in Bosnia
General von Schlieffen’s cunning plan and Britain’s ultimatum
The Great War
Your Country Needs YOU!
Death in the trenches
Death in the Dardanelles
Death at sea
Death on the Somme
Death in the mud
The war ends
Chapter 21: Radio Times
Big Troubles
Ireland – the Troubles
India – massacre at Amritsar
Problems back home
The Years That Roared
Party time!
Party’s over: The slump
How Goes the Empire?
Palestine – the double-promised land
Gandhi
The Road to Munich
The Munich Conference
And then Hitler attacked Poland
World War Two
Early battles and Churchill’s finest hour
Battle over Britain
If it ain’t flamin’ desert, it’s flippin’ jungle
Boats and bombers
D-Day – fighting on the beaches
The war with Germany ends
The war with Japan continues
Chapter 22: TV Times
We Are the Masters Now
The Beveridge Report: Fighting giants
Going into Labour
Power for the people
You may have won the war, but you can’t have any sweets
Discovery and recovery
End of Empire
Sunset in the east . . . and the Middle East
Wind of change in Africa
Losing an Empire, Finding a Role
A world power or just in de-Nile?
Into Europe?
Black and British – and brown, and yellow
Yeah yeah, baby – groovy
What ARE those politicians up to?
Labour pains
Chapter 23: Interesting Times
Mrs Thatcher’s Handbag
Union power and power cuts
Falklands fight, Hong Kong handover
Very special relationships
The Lady Vanishes
All alone in Europe
Belfast blows up
New Labour, New Dawn
Major problems
Blair’s Britain
Scotland and Wales – sort-of nations once again
Lording it over the Lords
Shoulder to shoulder with America
Britons bomb Britain
Part VII: The Part of Tens
Chapter 24: Ten Top Turning Points
End of the Ice Age, c. 7,500 BC
The Romans Invade Britain, 43 AD
The Synod of Whitby, 664
The Norman Invasion of England, 1066
The English invade Ireland, 1170
The Battle of Bannockburn, 1314
Henry VIII breaks with Rome, 1532
Charles I Tries to Arrest Five MPs, 1642
The Great Reform Act, 1832
The Fall of Singapore, 1942
Chapter 25: Ten Major Documents
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731)
The Book of Kells (800)
Magna Carta (1215)
The Declaration of Arbroath (1320)
The Authorised ‘King James’ Version of the Bible (1611)
The Petition of Right (1628)
Habeas Corpus (1679)
Lord Mansfield’s Judgement (1772)
The People’s Charter (1838)
Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859)
Chapter 26: Ten Things the British Have Given the World (Whether the World Wanted Them or Not)
Parliamentary Government
The English Common Law
Organised Sport
The Novel
DNA
The BBC
The Beatles
Tea with Milk
Penicillin
Gilbert and Sullivan
Chapter 27: Ten Great British Places to Visit
Skara Brae
Iona
Hadrian’s Wall
Durham
Stirling Castle
Beaumaris
Armagh
Chatsworth House
Ironbridge
Coventry Cathedral
Chapter 28: Ten Britons Who Should Be Better Known
King Oswald of Northumbria
Robert Grosseteste
Nicholas Owen
John Lilburne
Olaudah Equiano
John Snow
Sophia Jex-Blake
Emily Hobhouse
Dr Cecil Paine
Chad Varah

British History For Dummies® Illustrated Edition

by Dr Seán Lang

British History For Dummies® Illustrated Edition

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, LtdThe AtriumSouthern GateChichesterWest SussexPO19 8SQEngland

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Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-470-99468-9

Printed and bound by Fabulous Printers, Singapore

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About the Author

Dr Seán Lang studied history at Oxford and has been teaching it to school, college, and university students for the past twenty years. He is Senior Lecturer in History at Anglia Ruskin University. Sean has written textbooks on nineteenth and twentieth century history, and is co-editor of Twentieth Century History Review. He has advised both Government and Opposition on history teaching in schools and has written on history teaching for the Council of Europe. Sean is Honorary Secretary of the Historical Association and often appears on radio and television talking about historical topics – often because of this book.

Figure credits:

Portrait of Charles Darwin by Julia Margaret Cameron, An engraving of William the Conqueror by Antoine-Francis Sergent-Marceau, Tower of London, Book Illustration of King Edward III with Guy Earl of Flanders, King Henry VI, Damage caused by a mine to the Chattar Munzil during the siege of Lucknow, Reproduction of Genealogy of Christ from the Book of Kells © Stapleton Collection/CORBIS

Bust of Julius Caesar, National Museum in Naples, Sculpture of Claudius and Eagle, Engraving of King Alfred the Great by Caronni Longhi, Murder Scene of Archbishop Thomas Beckett, Magna Carta, Richard II of England, riding out to assume command of the rebel peasants, King James I of England in Royal Attire, Portrait of Oliver Cromwell, Engraved Portrait Of King Charles II, Engraved Portrait of Queen Anne, A replica of the spinning frame invented by Richard Arkwright in 1796, Portrait of Queen Victoria, Archduke Franz Ferdinand riding in a carriage in Leipzig, Winston Churchill, Panicked stock traders outside the New York Stock Exchange on the day of the market crash, Adolf Hitler, Labour Party Leader Clement Attlee, Queen Elizabeth II in her Formal Coronation Portrait, The England football team’s win against West Germany in the 1966 World Cup Final © Bettmann/CORBIS

Detail of the Burial Rites for Edward the Confessor from The Bayeux Tapestry, Detail of Woodsmen Felling Trees for Ship Construction from The Bayeux Tapestry, Portrait of King Henry VIII, The Battle of Waterloo in 1815 © Gianni Dagli Orti/CORBIS

Irish Revolutionary Michael Collins, David Lloyd-George, Mahatma Gandhi at No.10 Downing St, Residents of London’s East End head out of town away from Nazi bombs, The Beatles at The London Palladium, 1964 © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

Bronze Head of 1st Century Celtic Goddess Birgit, Viking Helmet © Werner Forman/CORBIS

Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII in Reims Cathedral by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Mary Stuart Queen of Scots, Portrait of King George IV © The Art Archive/CORBIS

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther, Portrait of King Charles I of England Out Hunting, Sir Isaac Newton © The Gallery Collection/CORBIS

The Argentinian Navy Cruiser General Belgrano, A march to commemorate the victims of Bloody Sunday 29 years on © Reuters/CORBIS

19th Century Print of Queen Margaret of Scotland by Henry Shaw, A hand-colored lithograph showing the India display at the Great Exhibition of 1851 © Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS

Stonehenge in Salisbury Plain © Hoberman Collection/CORBIS

Emain Macha (known as Navan Fort) in Northern Ireland © The Irish Image Collection/CORBIS

Statue of Boudica by Thomas Thornycroft in Westminster, London © Roger Halls; Cordaiy Photo Library Ltd./CORBIS

Wall Ruins at Hadrian’s Wall © Sandro Vannini/CORBIS

King Arthur’s Round Table in Winchester, England © Michel Setboun/CORBIS

Saint Cuthbert’s Tomb and the Neville Screen in Durham Cathedral © Angelo Hornak/CORBIS

Sculptures of Kings Offa and Egbert on the exterior of Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire © Robert Estall/CORBIS

Equestrian Statue of Richard I outside the Houses of Parliament © Jan Butchofsky-Houser/CORBIS

The Stone of Destiny under King Edward I’s coronation throne © Colin McPherson/Sygma/ CORBIS

Clifford’s Tower in Yorkshire; Durham Cathedral © Malcom Fife/zefa/CORBIS

Entrance to Hampton Court Palace © Roy Rainford/Robert Harding World Imagery/CORBIS

Halley’s Comet © Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS

The Annual Guy Fawke’s bonfire and parade in Lewes, East Sussex © Toby Melville/Reuters/Corbis

Portrait of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough by Adriaen van der Werff © Arte & Immagini srl/CORBIS

The Treaty Stone where England promised Ireland independent rule in 1691 © Underwood & Underwood/CORBIS

Aerial View of Angelesey and Menai Bridge Over Menai Straits © Jason Hawkes/CORBIS

Postcard of the Boston Tea Party © PoodlesRock/CORBIS

The Execution Of King Louis XVI © Leonard de Selva/CORBIS

Republican Mural Painting of the Irish Potato Famine © Michael St. Maur Sheil/CORBIS

William Ewart Gladstone © Chris Hellier/CORBIS

A monument to Prisoners of the Black Hole Prison, Calcutta, India © Jon Hicks/CORBIS

Suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst speaking to crowd at Trafalgar Square in London © Keystone/CORBIS

Margaret Thatcher’s Election Campaign © Derek Hudson/Sygma/CORBIS

A victorious Tony Blair with his family after the 1997 General Election © Sean Aidan/Eye Ubiquitous/CORBIS

Statue of St Michael and the Devil on the wall of Coventry Cathedral © Richard Klune/CORBIS

Author’s Acknowledgements

Thanks to Richard Dargie, Fr Feidhlimidh Magennis, and Jasmine Simeone for helping me to keep it genuinely British. To Jason Dunne and Daniel Mersey at Wiley for encouraging and chivvying me to keep the chapters flowing in. And to all my students, past and present, at Hills Road and Long Road Sixth Form Colleges in Cambridge: You shaped this book more than you know.

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

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Publisher: Jason Dunne

Executive Editor: Samantha Spickernell

Art Compiler: Jennifer Prytherch

Cover Photos: © Gianni Dagli Orti/CORBIS

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Introduction

One day, I was sitting in my college rooms at Oxford when my dad arrived to visit. Dad was one of the British staff at the American Embassy in London, and he had said that a couple of American girls who were over from the States had asked if they could come too, because they had never seen Oxford. Would I mind? Sounded good: Were there any more who wanted to come? As they came through the door, one of the girls gasped and said, with a sort of breathless awe, ‘Gee, I can’t believe I’m in one of these old buildings!’ Quite without thinking I said ‘Oh, they’re not that old. They’re only seventeenth century.’ You should have seen their faces.

But I was right. Just round the block from where I was sitting were other students sitting in rooms nearly four hundred years older than the ones I was in. (We reckoned our college food was even older than that.) And those rooms are still ‘only thirteenth century’. The Crown Jewels are in a tower that was built by William the Conqueror almost a thousand years ago. The amazing thing is not just that these buildings are old but that they’re still in use. You can go to church in Britain in the same buildings where Saxons worshipped, and you can drive along motorways that follow lines laid down by the Romans. Complaining that the British somehow live in the Past is silly: The Past lives in the British.

About This Book

If your idea of a history book is the sort of thing they gave you at school, forget it. Those books are written by people who want to get you through exams and give you tests and generally show off just how much they know and how clever they are at saying it. Believe me, I’ve written them. This book is different. Okay, it tells you the whole story, but I’ve tried to do so without making it seem like one whole slog. This is a great story: Don’t miss it.

So what’s so special about British History For Dummies Illustrated? Well, it’s in hardback, so it’ll stand up to rough treatment if the excitement gets too much for you. The pictures show you what some of the people and places looked like – or at least what other people in the past thought they looked like. And then there’s that word ‘British’. A lot of people think ‘British’ means ‘English’. And plenty of ‘British’ history textbooks only mention the Welsh and the Irish and the Scots when, in one way or other, they are giving the English grief. Or, more likely, the English are giving grief to them. In this book I’ve tried to redress the balance a bit. In here, you’ll meet people like King Malcolm Canmore, James IV, Brian Boru, Prince Llewellyn, and a few others who deserve a bit more than a passing reference.

Can I promise that this book is objective and fair? Well, I present my view of British history. That view is never going to be the same as someone else’s – therein lies the beauty of history. In fact, no such thing as an entirely ‘objective’ history book exists. Every time I choose to put something in and leave something out because there isn’t space, I’m making a judgement. Every word I use to describe the events is a judgement. Americans speak of the American Revolution; for many years the British spoke of it as the American War of Independence. Do you call what happened at Wounded Knee in 1890 a ‘battle’, which it was in the history books for a long time, or a ‘massacre’? Do I call what happened in the Highlands of Scotland after Culloden ‘ethnic cleansing’, as some people have? These judgements aren’t just about literary style: They’re judgements about the history, and not everyone will agree with them. If you think I’ve got it wrong, you are very welcome to write to me via my publisher, who will pass your letter on to an entirely fictitious address.

Not everyone in Britain feels happy being called British. Some prefer to put down ‘Scottish’ or ‘Welsh’ when they have to fill in a form, and many people in England routinely say ‘England’ or ‘English’ when they mean ‘Britain’ and ‘British’. For me, I’m happy with ‘British’. I have a name that shows that my ancestry is a mixture of English, Irish, and Scots. No Welsh, but then you can’t have everything. So this book is very much the story of my people, of where we came from, and how we ended up the way we are today.

Conventions Used in This Book

As you move through this book, you’ll notice that a few words are italicised. These are key terms or important events from British history, and I give an explanation of what they mean, or what they led to.

Sidebars (text enclosed in a shaded box) consist of information that’s interesting to know but not necessarily critical to your understanding of British history. You can skip sidebars if you like – I won’t tell anyone.

Finally, when I mention dates, you’ll need to know your BC and AD from your BCE and CE. In western historical tradition, the convention is to start with the birth of Jesus Christ (though actually they calculated it wrong by about four years!) so that anything that happened from then on was dated AD – Anno Domini (‘Year of Our Lord’ in Latin), and earlier dates were labelled BC – Before Christ. These terms are fine if you’re happy using a Christian dating system, but not everyone is. Rather than come up with a different starting point (which would mean changing every date in every book) some people prefer to use CE – Common Era – instead of AD and BCE – Before the Common Era – instead of BC. In the end what term you use is a matter of taste: The actual dates aren’t affected. I’ve stuck with BC and AD because I’m used to them and they tally with the dates you’ll find in most books, but if you prefer to use CE and BCE, you go right on and do it.

Foolish Assumptions

I may be wrong, but I’ve made a few assumptions in writing this book. Assumptions about you. I’m assuming that you probably:

Did a bit of British history at school, but found it all got very confusing or else you quite liked it, but your memory’s a bit hazy about who did what

Did some English history but only touched on Wales or Scotland or Ireland when they were having trouble with the English

Enjoy a good story and want to know more

How This Book Is Organised

I’ve organised this book so that you can read if from beginning to end or by jumping from topic to topic. To help you find the information you want, I’ve divided the material into parts. Each part represents a particular period in Britain’s history and contains chapters with information about that era. The following sections describe the type of information you can find in each of this book’s parts.

Part I: The British Are Coming!

No, this part isn’t about Paul Revere. Part I is about Britain’s early days – the really early days. You can find information on life in Stone Age and Iron Age Britain – or as good a guess as archaeologists can come up with from the evidence these early people left behind, This part also introduces you to the mysterious Celts and takes a look at their religion (the weird and wacky ways of the Druids), their monuments, and the opinions that others (like the Romans) had of them. Basically, this part gives you a better picture of this dim and distant and rather mysterious, but also rather wonderful, world.

Part II: Everyone Else Is Coming! The Invaders

Suddenly everyone wants to conquer Britain. Romans, Saxons, Angles, (maybe Jutes), Vikings, Normans. What was the attraction? It can’t have been the weather, and I don’t believe it was the food. The Romans made Britain part of their great Empire, and then left them at the mercy of Picts, who invaded from the north, and the Angles and Saxons, who came from over the sea. Then came the Vikings, who plundered and raided, and eventually settled down in Ireland, in England, and in the Scottish islands. Finally, Britain began to form into the units we recognise today – Wales, Scotland, and England. And then, just when you thought it was safe, a new breed of Vikings – the Normans (these guys were of Norse descent, they weren’t French) – conquer Anglo-Saxon England. And not just England reels.

Part III: Who’s in Charge Around Here? The Middle Ages

Knights in armour, fair maidens, and all that. Welcome to the Middle Ages, a time period when England finds herself in a great power game fought across Europe and in the Holy Land. We begin with one big, unhappy family who just happened to be ruling an empire that included England: The Plantagenets, who were on the English throne for some time and who took over a few other thrones. Ireland for one, and then, when Edward I stormed through Wales, the Welsh throne, too. Edward came pretty close to getting the Scottish throne as well. In fact, the Plantagenets did take the Scottish throne – they took it all the way down to London. In this part, you meet some colourful characters like Thomas à Becket, who was murdered in his own Cathedral; Wat Tyler, the leader of the Peasants’ Revolt who was killed before the king’s eyes; William Wallace, a freedom fighter (yes, the film Braveheart is set during this time); and the ordinary people who lived and prayed and died far away from the world of knights and kings, and whose lives we glimpse in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Part IV: Rights or Royals? The Tudors and Stuarts

In this part, you find out about the Tudors in England (and Wales and Ireland) and the Stuarts in Scotland, two families who had such power yet were let down by that oldest of problems: Getting an heir. Here you meet Henry VIII, who was to become history’s most famous serial husband; Queen Elizabeth, who became history’s second most famous virgin; Mary, Queen of Scots, who was driven from her kingdom by religious zealots and scandal; and others, like Oliver Cromwell, who shaped the political and religious landscape of the time. This part also examines religion, as Catholics burned Protestants, Protestants tortured Catholics, and the Reformation raged through England and Scotland. It also explains how the power struggles between Parliament and Charles I pushed the country into a violent and bloody Civil War. Yet, despite the horrors of civil war, revolution, fire, plague, and long wigs on men, this era was also the one that brought the Renaissance to Britain, and with it new ideas that changed the way people saw and understood their world.

Part V: On the Up: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

When the eighteenth century opened, no one would have believed that the British were on their way to creating the most powerful nation the world had ever known. No one planned this nation, no one even particularly wanted it, but its formation happened nonetheless. The British created their own country, a strange hybrid affair with a long and clumsy name – the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland – by passing Acts of Parliament, crushing the life out of the Highlands of Scotland, and fighting the French all over the globe. Even seeming set-backs (like when the British-over-the-sea in America decided that enough was enough and declared their independence) only made the country stronger. Not all the momentous changes during this period took place on the world stage, however. Several remarkable people were busy solving practical problems – like how to spin thread more efficiently and where to build a canal – and, in the process, changed not just Britain but the world for ever. By the time the Victorian age began, Britain had become the world’s first industrial superpower, with a global empire to match.

Part VI: Don’t Look Down: The Twentieth Century

Boy, were the British in for a shock. All that confidence in themselves, all that self-belief – it all fell apart in the trenches, literally. This part is where you can find out about Britain in the twentieth century, already troubled as it went into the First World War, deeply scarred and shell-shocked at the end of it. But the events of the Great War weren’t the only ones that left Britain reeling. Back at home, Ireland rose in rebellion, the country succumbed to the global Depression, and another world conflict loomed on the horizon and then arrived before Britain was in a position to handle it. But fight Britain did, standing alone against the might of Hitler’s Germany. Yet even as the RAF won the Battle of Britain, the sun was finally setting over Britain’s mighty Empire. This part ends by bringing the story up to date, as Britain searches for a new role – in the Commonwealth? In Europe? Or shoulder to shoulder with the USA?

Part VII: The Part of Tens

Want to impress strangers with the depth of your knowledge and insight? Read this part. If someone talks about turning points in world affairs, you can say, ‘I know all about them’ – and then offer one (or more) of the ten turning points that helped shape Britain (you can find them in Chapter 23). Then you can go on to ten major British contributions to world civilisation, or ten documents that helped shape Britain as much as, if not more so, than any of the battles that had been fought. In this part, you can find lists like these and more. And, for those times when you want to experience British history rather than merely read about it, I’ve listed a few (okay, ten) places you may want to see for yourself.

Icons Used in This Book

History isn’t just about telling stories: It’s about thinking. How do we know these things happened? What are we to make of them? To highlight some of these points, you’ll see some icons that indicate something special about the text next to them.

British history is full of good stories. Unfortunately, not all of them are true! This icon means I’ll be checking.

The Present is a gift from the Past. Where you see this icon, you’ll see examples of how events even long ago in history have helped shape life in Britain to this day.

History is always being rewritten, because historians often disagree about what to think about events in the past. Where you see this icon, you’ll see some very different interpretations!

There are some points you need to remember in order to make sense of what’s coming. This icon tells you the main ones.

Odd facts, small details. You can skip these bits if you like, or else learn them by heart and amaze your friends.

Where to Go from Here

‘Begin at the beginning,’ says the King of Hearts in Alice’s Adventures inWonderland, ‘and go on till you come to the end: Then stop.’ You don’t have to follow that advice in this book. If you want to know about the Tudors, head straight for Chapter 11, or if you want to know about the Georges, read Chapter 15 and don’t you worry about Chapters 13 or 14 along the way. But, of course, history connects in all sorts of ways, and you may find that information in one chapter links up with something in another chapter. If you want to read that other chapter you can, and if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Did they give you this much choice at school?

Part I

The British Are Coming!

In this part . . .

Britain is an ancient land, with a lot of history. It was formed thousands of years ago by the continental shifts of the Ice Age; the first people to come to Britain and to Ireland came on foot, before the ice melted and the seas came. In time they learned the arts of metal, first tin and copper, then bronze, and finally iron, the ‘daddy’ of all metals in the ancient world. With these metals they made weapons for hunting and fighting, and they crafted tools, learning painfully but steadily how to adapt this land, with its hills, dales, mountains, and lakes, and to tame it.

These people weren’t ‘English’ or ‘Irish’ or ‘Scots’ or ‘Welsh’ – that was all to come a lot later. But their descendants still live here, sometimes in the same places, and they laid the foundations of modern Britain and of Ireland. This part looks at who these people were, and at the culture they forged in the ages of stone and bronze and iron. This is the beginning.

Chapter 1

So Much History, So Little Time

In This Chapter

Listing the kingdoms that make up the United Kingdom

Figuring out how the UK was formed

Identifying the people who make up the UK

British history is a history of a variety of people inhabiting a variety of regions. In fact, all this variety is one of the reasons why the country’s name is so ridiculously long: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This name’s a mouthful, for sure, but it reveals a great deal about the people – past and present – who have inhabited these islands.

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!