The Beginnings of Civilisation in Britain

Britain’s special destiny is mainly due to its position to the continent. It is

insular, but it has never been isolated. The continent has always exercised a strong
influence on Britain. Moreover, the British-Irish Isles have constantly attracted
invaders, then settlers and immigrants throughout their history. Thus, the British
civilisation represents an interesting combination of Latin and Germanic cultures,
combination that essentially accounts for its originality.

The Iberians
Though little accurate information is held about the early settlement of
Britain, it is generally considered that the primitive populations in the British Isles
were the Iberians. Of Mediterranean origin, believed to have come from Spain in
about 3000 BC, the Iberians seem to be the forefathers of today’s inhabitants of
Wales and Cornwall, where predominates the small, dark, long-skull type,
different from the Celts, tall, blond- or red-haired and blue-eyed, just like the
Germanic type. The Neolithic people worked the chalk soil of southern England
and built large wood and stone monuments. After 3000 BC, the chalkland people
started building ‘henges’, wooden buildings and stone circles situated in a circular
area delimited by ditches.
The Iberians are associated with the megalithic civilisation in Britain,
maintained until 150 BC in the Western part of the Mediterranean, reaching as far
as Bretagne, the South of England and Ireland. The megalithic art is characterised
by a certain specific way of building, using large blocks of carved stone, without
polished surfaces and without a precise form. A megalithic monument was
generally built out of religious reasons. In Britain, this type of ritual megalithic
monument called ‘henge’ was also a centre of political and economic power.
The most spectacular megalithic monument of this type is Stonehenge,
isolated in the middle of a plain, twelve kilometres north of Salisbury, in the south
of England. Although its precise purposes remain a mystery, it is believed that
Stonehenge had a religious function related to the cult of the sun and to the cult of
the dead. Stonehenge was built in several stages over a period of more than one
thousand years. Basically, Stonehenge could be seen as a very early
materialisation of the fundamental principles of architecture: delimitation of the
inner space, contrast between the supporting elements (the vertical pillars) and the
supported ones (the flag and the architrave), of the principle of order, rhythm and
symmetry. The people who built Stonehenge seem to have been well aware of the
notions of centre, circle, rhythm, axis, which lie at the basis of the art of
architecture. Thus, it can be said that the megalithic monuments mark the
beginnings of monumental architecture. Besides, Stonehenge had an exceptional
function, different from the previous utilitarian one. No longer uniquely interested
in the material and useful dimension of the building, man thought of putting up an
architectonic monument for the social group he lived in, conferring it an
exceptional, solemn, religious function.
 The Beaker Folk
By 2500 BC, new groups of people reached Britain coming from Europe and
they introduced a Bronze Age culture. Distinguishing themselves by their military
and metal-working skills, the Beaker Folk, named for their characteristic pottery
found in their graves, exercised a remarkable influence on the British society.
They are noted for their bronze tools and their stone monuments, such as
Stonehenge, whose construction was finalised during this period, by huge
bluestones being brought from Wales. These monuments attest to the social and
economic organisation of the Beaker people as well as to their technical and
intellectual ability.

The Celts
The word Celt comes from Keltoi, the name given to these people by the
Greek. The Romans called these same people Galli or Gauls. The Celts in the
British Isles were known as Britanni.
The Celts started from central Europe and settled in France and northern
Spain around 800 BC1, crossing the British Isles in the sixth and fifth centuries
BC2. This is the period when the Celts were in the course of setting up a
civilisation of their own and identifying their own forms of artistic expression.
Yet, before imposing themselves as a strong civilisation, the Celts had already
assimilated the local prehistoric populations and they continued to live together
with the creators of the megalithic civilisation.
As they were considerably more advanced from a technical point of view, the
Celts managed to impose their form of tribal organisation in most regions of the
British Isles. The Celtic tribes met little resistance on the part of the local
populations, because the descendants of the Iberians in Britain were not warriors.
By the first century BC, most of the Celtic populations gave way to the Romans
coming from the south and to the Germanic peoples coming from the north. Thus,
in medieval, and later, in modern times, the Celtic cultural identity, customs,
culture and languages3, survived only in four geographical areas: Brittany, or
Bretagne (in western France), Wales and Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands, and
Ireland. Though the main stock of the British today is said to be Anglo-Saxon, a
better view would be that it is Anglo-Celt.
The Celtic society was organised in tribes ruled by a king or a chief and much
of the community’s strength was based on a feeling of solidarity and family. Most
tribes had one or two settlements surrounded by palisades, usually called ‘towns’
by the Latin. This is probably the reason why some persistent themes still to be
traced in the areas inhabited by the Celts were rural settlement, hospitality
feasting, and fellowship drinking.
The Celts worked the soil, continuing the same type of agriculture as the
Bronze Age people before them, but in heavier soils, as their iron technology
permitted them to introduce new ploughing methods. The Celts were good traders,
trade being important for the social and political contact between the tribes.

1
This date represents the beginning of the first period of the Iron Age (Hallstatt) in Western
Europe.
2
The second period of the Iron Age (500 BC – 100 AD) may be said to have been almost
completely marked by the Celtic contribution.
3
In Scotland, more than 75,000 people still speak Gaelic, a Celtic language, in the Highlands,
whereas Irish Gaelic, or Erse, is taught in schools as one of the country’s official languages.
 There were three main social orders in the Celtic society: the warriors and the
noblemen, the druids and the ordinary people. There were only very few slaves.
The most honoured class presumably was that of the druids, learned people who
underwent a twenty-year training period. Beside priestly duties, the druids were
also warriors. Moreover, they were specialised in religion, law, astronomy, poetry,
music, and calendrics. Calendrics exemplified the Celts’ knowledge of solar and
lunar movements, some of the Celts’ calendars being said to be more accurate
than the Roman calendars.4
The family was very important for the functioning of the Celtic society, the
woman enjoying rights and privileges more in line with the modern mentality and,
certainly, unusual for those times.
One important element to understand Celtic culture is the Celts’ belief in
immortality. The Celts believed that the soul resided in the head. That is the
reason why in the Celtic representations, the heads sometimes had two5 or even
three faces, suggesting the power of the soul to look in all directions of the
horizon. Celtic deities were gods presiding over different functions. Religious
rituals were extremely important for the Celts, the ceremonies taking place in the
open air. Human sacrifice was practised, presumably in sacred groves where
there were
rectangular precincts delimited by v-shaped ditches and containing ritual shafts
for offerings. The Lindow man, a 2,200-year-old corpse discovered in an English
peat bog, seems to have been a sacrificial victim. Unlike the Germanic peoples,
who incinerated their dead, the Celts buried theirs, the cult of the dead also
implying a series of funeral rituals.
Celtic art is considered to be the first great contribution that non-
Mediterranean peoples made to the development of European art. Although
influenced to a certain extent by Persian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art, Celtic
art had a distinctive style characterised by abstract, sinuous, curvilinear designs,
most of it in metalwork and ceramics. The Celtic style displays a clear preference
for stylised floral and animal motifs, for curves and spirals combined in intricate
geometrical patterns. The spiral motif added to the Greek and Etruscan plant and
animal motifs turns the Celtic style into an original one. The style emerging in the
British Isles was called Insular, and it is a combination of traditional sinuous
Celtic motifs, symmetrical patterns and subtly balanced asymmetry, combination
most evident in symmetrical objects such as mirrors and shields. Later on, during
the Christian period, the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons influenced the Celtic
decoration of ecclesiastical objects, such as metal reliquaries, communion
chalices, stone crosses, and gospel books.
4
Out of the main festivals recorded in the Celtic calendars, October 31/ November 1, the
beginning of the druid New Year, has survived to our days as Halloween. The origins of
Halloween date back to the Druid festival of Samhain, Lord of the Dead and Prince of Darkness.
According to Celtic beliefs, on October 31, Samhain presented the souls of those who had died
during the year to the Druid Heaven. The Sun God, who shared the holiday, received thanks for
the year’s harvest. The druids called supernatural forces to stop the evil forces, reason for which
the tradition of modern Halloween implies whole paraphernalia of ghosts, goblins, witches,
skeletons, cats, masks and bonfires. The custom of telling ghost stories on Halloween comes from
the druids as well. To honour the Sun God and to frighten away evil spirits, the druids would light
huge bonfires and relate happenings they had experienced during the year. As Christianity
replaced the pagan religions, the church set aside November 1 to honour all saints (all hallows)
and called it All Hallows’ Day. The evening before was All Hallows’ Eve, or Halloween.
5
The Celtic god Janus is an example.
 Celtic art, primarily decorative, includes torcs and neck rings, with the two
open ends ornamented with animal heads, brooches decorated with filigree work.
These objects, as well as the shields or mirrors, owe their beauty to the elaborate
designs engraved in the metal or created with enamel, for whose art the Celts were
famous.
The Book of Kells is considered to be one of the most famous manuscripts
illuminated in gold and colours.
The Romans
In 55 BC and 54 BC Julius Caesar briefly visited Britain. He gave a
description of Britain and of its inhabitants, collectively designated as Britons,
although he referred only to the regions in the south and east, where he said he
had discovered a civilised society. There were several raids to Britain, which
constituted the first attempt to invade the country. The real invasion, however,
took place in 43 BC under Claudius. The southern part of the island became thus
Britannia, a province of the Roman Empire ruled by a governor, although local
Celtic chiefs were still used to keep order. After the conquest, for four centuries
Britain became an integral part of the political system that the Roman Empire
was, the influence of the Roman world continuing even after Britain broke with
the Roman rule. In the first century AD the Romans conquered the Celts in
England and Wales. There were also attempts to conquer the Picts6 and other
Scottish tribes, yet all these attempts failed. The Celtic populations in Scotland
and Ireland remained independent for several more centuries.
Once the province of Britannia was created, the Romans introduced forms
specific to their own culture. Thus, during the Roman occupation Britain
considerably benefited from the advanced technology and culture of the Romans.
The native populations were influenced by the Roman civilisation in various areas
of life, law and politics, art and engineering. Yet, although the Romans seem to
have brought all their culture to Britain, it was only the wealthier classes that
accepted the Latin language and the Roman way of life. The upper classes of the
British society started to imitate the Roman manners and lifestyle. The Celts
under Roman rule were influenced by Latin culture, but Celtic languages
continued to be spoken down to the end of the Roman period. The Celts in north
Britain and Ireland maintained their old traditions.
No matter if they had grown out of old Celtic settlements, military camps or
market centres the towns were one of the main characteristics of Roman Britain.
The urban civilisation reached a remarkable level of development. The towns also
represented the basis of the Roman administration and civilisation. 7 Without walls
at first, all towns had thick stone walls by 300 AD. The Romans founded about
twenty large towns (about 5,000 inhabitants) and around 100 smaller ones. As
many of these towns originally were army camps, the Latin word castra has
6
The Picts are the ancient inhabitants of central and northern Scotland and of northern Ireland.
Said to have come from the continent first in Scotland and then in Ireland, the Picts are first
mentioned in relation with the history of Britain by the Romans. They are the people because of
whose raids from the north against the province of Britannia, Hadrian's Wall was built. 73 miles
(117 km) long, 22 feet (6.7 metres) high and 8 feet (2.4 m) wide, Hadrian’s Wall is a line of forts
which marks the northern frontier of the province. It was built after Emperor Hadrian’s visit to
Britain in 122 AD in order to protect the province against attacks from the north. Parts of Hadrian's
Wall remain standing in present-day Britain.
7
The towns in Roman Britain were either coloniae, inhabited by the Romans and municipia,
whose entire population was given Roman citizenship, or civitas, which represented the basis of
the Roman administration of the Celtic populations in the countryside.
remained part of many toponyms8 to the present. They had a forum and a town
hall, shops, public baths and theatres, as well as a very well planned street system.
Buildings were put up following the model of the Roman stone buildings.
Decorated with painted walls and mosaic floors, the buildings offered the comfort
of central heating, glass windows, and even baths.
The towns were connected by roads built with layers of gravel on a stone
foundation, reason for which they continued to be used long after the Romans left
Britain. London, the most important trading centre of Britain, was at the
crossroads of six of these Roman roads. London may be said to have become the
most important trading centre in northern Europe, as, after the settlement of the
first Romans in Britannia, the commercial relationships with the continent
increased in number and importance.
Outside, but very near the towns for economic reasons, there were large farms
called ‘villas’, which represented another important aspect of Britain during the
Roman occupation. They belonged to the rich Britons who had adapted to the
Roman lifestyle.
In the third and the fourth centuries the Roman Empire started to decline,
which clearly influenced Britain as well, as in this same period, the Roman
legions began to withdraw from Britain to defend other parts of the Roman
Empire. Thus, starting from the fifth century, once the last legions had left the
island, Celtic culture became predominant again. Unfortunately, Roman
civilisation, which had also meant the benefit of the skills of reading and writing
brought to the island, rapidly disintegrated. Roman culture and its influence gave
way under the pressure of the Germanic attacks in the fifth and sixth centuries,
when the Anglo-Saxon culture spread throughout the island.
After nearly four centuries of occupation, what remained from Rome as part
of Britain’s heritage was a wonderful network of roads, the sites of several towns,
such as London or York, and the names of others ending in –cester, -caster or –
chester. The most important heritage was, however, Christianity.
Christianity was well established in Celtic Britain by the 4th century AD, but
in the fifth century, the Germanic peoples’ invasions drove most of the Celtic
Christians into Wales and Cornwall. Consequently, between the fifth and the
eighth centuries, Celtic Christianity implied a form of monasticism that
encouraged the development of craft workshops, manuscript production, and
stone architecture. Ireland, where Saint Patrick founded a new church, became the
centre of Celtic Christianity. Much of the knowledge of Rome was preserved
thanks to the Irish monks’ devotion to learning and to religion. In the sixth
century, Saint Columba founded a monastery on the Island of Iona, introducing
there the tradition of illumination. The Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels are
perfect examples of such illuminated manuscripts. Later on, the Irish missionaries
would be extremely active in Christianising the Germanic peoples.
Although the art objects from this period demonstrate a clear Roman vision,
there also exists a continuity of the vision of the old Celts, which means that the
culture of the Celts developed in parallel with the artistic forms representing
syntheses of the Roman and Celtic culture. The best illustration of such a

8
Names of places ending in chester, caster or cester, such as Chester, Lancaster or Winchester.
synthesis could be found in the Celtic stone crosses9 that can still be seen in
Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Cornwall.
From the fifth to the seventh centuries, Germanic tribes started to attack
Britain. Most Celts sought refuge in the mountainous regions in the west. The
island was conquered with difficulty, as it was bravely defended. In the sixth
century, the mythical King Arthur fought on the side of the Romano-British Celts
against the Anglo-Saxons.10

The Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes

Attracted by the wealth of the country, Germanic tribes raided Britain in the
fourth century and began to settle in the fifth. The Angles, the Saxons, and the
Jutes, people coming from north-west Germany, invaded Britain and settled
between the fifth and the seventh centuries AD. Much of our knowledge of the
Anglo-Saxon period comes from Bede, whose rendering of events in his
Ecclesiastical History of the English People11 has been generally confirmed by
archaeology. Tall, blond, and blue-eyed, the Anglo-Saxons represent Britain’s
main historical stock and the new name of Britain’s largest part, England, i.e. “the
land of the Angles”, is mainly due to the Anglo-Saxon migrations.
The Germanic invaders, though fought against by the British Celts, settled in
the richest lands of Britain, as many of the Anglo-Saxon invaders were farmers
looking for fertile land. The new English civilisation was therefore based on
village agriculture and had little, if anything at all, in common with town life. As a
consequence, the Anglo-Saxon invasions initially led to the loss of the crafts,
science and learning of Rome. The Celts, who had accepted the Roman
civilisation as being superior to their own, could not easily accept the Anglo-
Saxon one. Consequently, they withdrew in the mountainous regions of Britain,
leaving the richest lands to the Saxons, who, benefiting from favourable
geographical circumstances, created a civilisation of their own that demonstrated
in time its superiority. Yet, in the Welsh12 mountainous zone, the language and
civilisation remained mainly Celtic. In England, however, only too little of the old
Celtic languages and culture has survived, except for the names of the rivers
Thames, Mersey, Severn and Avon, and the cities of London and Leeds.
The Anglo-Saxons set up a number of kingdoms. In the seventh century there
were seven kingdoms, whose names are still to be found in the names of some
counties of England: Kent, Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), Wessex
(West Saxons), East Anglia (East Angles), Mercia (including the Middle Angles)
and Northumbria. In the eighth century, there remained only three: Northumbria
in the north, Mercia in the centre and Wessex south of the Thames. It is also in the
eighth century that the English started to become aware of themselves as an ethnic
and cultural unity. King Offa of Mercia, the most powerful English king before

9
Carved from a single stone block, with carved representations from the Bible, the Celtic cross is
like a Latin one with a circle surrounding the intersection.
10
King Arthur was the king of England who led the Britons in the battles against the Saxons. The
most important heritage surviving these times are the Arthurian legends, which represent the
central part of the British tradition and folklore.
11
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People is considered to be the first important and
serious work of English history. It was written in Latin by the English monk Bede, also called the
Venerable Bede, (673-735) in his monastery in Jarrow in north-east England.
12
The Saxons called the mountains in the far west “Wales”, meaning “the land of the foreigners”
and the Celtic people living there “Welsh”, i.e. “foreigners”.
Alfred, is “the first ruler whose charters use the simple, unqualified title ‘king of
the English’.”13
The Nordic peoples had much in common: language, religion, customs of war
and agriculture, a body of epic poetry, the art of decorating weapons and
jewellery. Brave and loyal, they had a deep sense of honour. As a consequence of
their condition of warriors, they proved loyalty to their chiefs. It may be even said
that the relation of the Anglo-Saxon warrior to his chief represents the basis of
aristocracy and feudalism The Anglo-Saxons were organised under the form of
kingship and the royal family was considered to be of divine origin.
The institutions that the Anglo-Saxons set up contributed to the future
consolidation of the English State. From among these institutions, the Witan is
one through which a system to survive as an important aspect of the king’s
government methods was established. The Witan, or the King’s Council, initiated
a tradition of government that may be identified in the latter-day Privy Council 14.
Presumably a group of senior warriors and Church representatives, to whom the
king turned for advice and support, the Witan became a formal body, with few
members, empowered to issue laws and charters. It also represented the highest
court of justice. Although the king could ignore the Witan’s advice, kings did not
do that, as the Witan had the authority to dismiss an incapable king or to refuse to
entrust the kingdom to a minor, especially in wartime.
In Anglo-Saxon times, the kingdom was administratively divided into shires,
over which shire reeves, name later on shortened to sheriff, were appointed. The
Saxon word ‘shire’ meant to designate a distinct administrative area, continued to
coexist alongside the Norman word ‘county’, both terms being still used. The term
‘shire’ is present nowadays in the name of some English administrative areas, or
counties, such as Oxfordshire or Yorkshire.
There was a ‘manor’ in each district, where villagers came to pay taxes, to be
done justice and to join the Anglo-Saxon army, the ‘fyrd’. This organisation
activity represented the responsibility of the lord of the manor, who also had to
watch over land sharing. This is the basis of the manorial system, to be perfected
later on by the Normans. The lord was a local official, called an alderman.15
Christianity represented one of the most important aspects of the Roman
heritage and it had been firmly established in Britain well before the Romans left
the country. Yet, as the Anglo-Saxons belonged to the Germanic heathen religion,
with the Celts they drove into the west and north, they also drove Christianity,
which continued to spread in the Celtic areas. Christianity was re-established in
England by two groups of missionaries. One was coming from the Celtic
monasteries of Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The other came from Rome,
Augustine being one of the forty monks sent to teach Christianity to the Anglo-
Saxons. Augustine converted the King of Kent and built a church in Canterbury,
the capital city of the kingdom. He also became the first Archbishop of
Canterbury. Canterbury became thus the religious capital of England. The kings’
13
Blair, J., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Period’ in The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain ed. Morgan,
Kenneth O., (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000) 73.
14
The Privy Council is a group of people appointed to counsel the British king or queen. Made up
of 400 politicians and lawyers, representatives of the Church and the Commonwealth, the Privy
Council has at present only few functions, but it used to be powerful in the 14th century.
15
The word has survived with almost the same meaning to our days. Though it is seldom, if ever
used, to designate a member of a city council in England and Wales, it is still used to refer to a
member of the government of a city in the United States, Canada or Australia.
conversion to Christianity brought about the ordinary people’s change of religious
beliefs and, starting from the eighth century, the whole of England was part of the
Roman church.
The change of religion meant a step forward that the English took on the path
of civilisation. Christianity grafted itself onto the religion common to the
primitive Anglo-Saxons, and later on of the Scandinavians, which essentially was
a layman’s, a warrior religion. There appeared a very interesting mixture between
Christian ideas, which implied a concern with the spiritual, and attitudes, charity,
humility, self-discipline, and the Nordic religion, which reflected manliness,
generosity, loyalty in service and friendship. The mixture between the morals of
the northern warrior with the Christian morals was to give birth to the heroes in
the chivalric novels. The Anglo-Saxon poetry is the best evidence of this
mixture.16
Christianity also meant the return of learning to the island based on the arts of
reading and writing in the Latin alphabet. The monasteries became centres of
learning and education. They contributed to increasing the prestige of the Church
and, through the close relationship established between the Church and the king,
to the growth of royal authority.
There are two fields in which art developed in England during the Anglo-
Saxon period: illuminated manuscripts and architecture. The monasteries had a
very important role in setting up the Anglo-Saxons’ cultural tradition and identity.
The consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon tradition took place in a Celtic cultural
environment. A large monastery was set up on the island of Iona in the sixth
century. One century later, Lindisfarne was built in Northumbria and it was to
mark the climax of the Celtic cultural influence in England. Monastic buildings
were extremely austere. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts combined Copt, Celtic and
Germanic elements, which shows an interweaving of the Celtic and the Germanic
traditions.

The Vikings
Around the middle of the ninth century, Britain was raided by a new wave of
peoples coming from Norway and Denmark, attracted by the country’s wealth.
Towards the end of the century, the Vikings came to settle. As a rule, the Vikings
settled in the lands they had raided and very often converted to Christianity. 17
Their organisation was typical of any other warrior society – groups led by
warrior chiefs to whom the warriors showed loyalty. The Vikings were pirates,
but they were also traders, reason for which they revived the town life. They
founded and fortified cities and towns.18 They brought back the sea-faring habits,
which the Anglo-Saxons had lost. Moreover, the Viking ships were built to be
able to navigate rivers, which became the main routes of penetration into the
country. It was only when the Anglo-Saxon kings, Alfred the Great in particular,

16
The Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf is the most important work of Old English literature.
Written in the West Saxon dialect, it is believed to date from the late 10th century. Considered to
be the work of an anonymous 8th-century poet, Beowulf is illustrative of the fusion of
Scandinavian history and pagan mythology with Christian elements.
17
The religion of the Vikings resembled the religion of other warrior Germanic societies. It was a
religion of Odin, the god of war and leader of the Norse gods, and Thor, the god of thunder. The
Viking warrior died heroically in battle hoping he would be called to dwell in Valhalla, Odin’s
palace in the realm of the gods.
18
York in England and Dublin in Ireland became important trade centres.
understood that they should fortify the towns and set up a fleet, that they could
stop more effectively the Scandinavian expansion in the British Isles.
Thus, the Vikings could not be prevented by the Anglo-Saxon kings from
conquering the island. By the end of the ninth century, they had conquered most
of England. The only king who opposed them was Alfred the Great, king of
Wessex. After a series of defeats, Alfred managed to win the decisive battle
against the Danes and later on to capture London. A powerful king, Alfred made a
treaty with the Vikings, whose rule was recognised in the east and north of
England. This is the territory known as the Danelaw. Alfred ruled the rest of the
country.
Alfred had the talent of a warrior, administrator, legislator, and scholar. He set
up a sound administration, reorganised the land army, the navy19, the legal and
education systems and rebuilt the fortifications of the old Roman towns,
especially London. Alfred also revived the taste for study, by setting up schools.
He is the one who founded the first public school. As a scholar, Alfred may be
said to be the initiator of English prose literature by translations. He translated
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, but he also ordered that the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle20 should be started. Both documents represent an important source to
understand England’s history during this period.
After Alfred’s death, the prestige of the Anglo-Saxon kings was increased
furthermore by his successors who succeeded in conquering back from the Danes
Mercia, then Northumbria. The new Danish invasion took place during the reign
of the Saxon king, Ethelred, who decided to pay the Danes to stay away. The
tribute, known as the “danegeld” imposed heavy taxation on the people. Yet, in
return for money, the Vikings negotiated peaceful coexistence and accepted to be
converted.
On the decision of the Witan, Ethelred, whose heir had died, was followed to
the throne of England by Canute, brother of the King of Denmark. He had been
controlling much of England at that time. Canute converted to Christianity and,
more importantly, decided to rule like a real English king. In 1016, he was king of
England, in 1018, he became king of Denmark, in 1030, he conquered Norway,
setting up an empire, which did not survive after his death.
Canute’s successor to the crown was Edward, also known as “the Confessor”.
Yet, because he had been brought up in Normandy, though he was Saxon
Ethelred’s second son, Edward was more of a Norman than of an English king. It
may be said that Edward’s reign paved the way for the future Norman invasion
and conquest of England. He surrounded himself only by Norman counsellors and
appointed a Norman as Archbishop of Canterbury.
When Edward died, the Witan chose Harold to become the next king. On
account of two promises presumably made first by Edward, and then by Harold
himself, Harold’s right to the throne of England was contested by William, Duke
of Normandy. William decided to attack England, which he did from the south,
while the Danish Vikings were attacking from the north. In 1066, Harold was
defeated at Hastings. William entered London and he was crowned king in
Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day. William’s rule, known as the Norman

19
The Viking culture was one of the most advanced in Europe especially in shipbuilding. Alfred
the Great adopted the styles of Viking ships.
20
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is an early history of England written in Old English. It covers the
period from the Romans’ coming to Britain until the Norman Conquest.
Conquest, marks the beginning of the Middle Ages in Britain, period during
which the English inevitably opened up towards and started shareing in the value
system of the continent.

The Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages

1066 was the year that marked a turning point in the history of England.
Starting with the reign of William I, called ‘The Conqueror’, England benefited
from a vigorous new leadership, which made it turn away from Scandinavia
towards France. Norman feudalism became the basis of organisation of the
country, a new social and political structure being established. French culture
considerably influenced English civilisation for four hundred years.
William I was the first Norman king of England and he ruled the country from
1066 to 1087. Having many of the qualities of the modern head of state, William
is considered to be one of the first modern kings, as well as an outstanding figure
in the history of Western Europe.
William was a tough ruler, but the conquest of England did not take place
right after William’s victory at the Battle of Hastings. Though crowned king in
1066, William continued to meet the opposition of the English, especially in the
north and west, and his position was rather precarious until 1070, when the
conquest of England was complete. By 1086, two hundred Norman barons
possessed the lands that more than four thousand Saxon landlords had lost. There
is historical evidence that there had remained only two Saxon landlords and two
Saxon bishops. Thus “[…] England received not just a new royal family but also a
new ruling class, a new culture and language.”21
William reorganised the English feudal and administrative systems, which is
one of the main features of his reign. He dissolved the great earldoms and
confiscated the lands from the English, distributing them to the Norman barons
who had helped him during his expedition to England. The gradual character of
the conquest and of land confiscation considerably influenced English feudalism.
A baron’s estates were never gathered in a single part of the country, as things
happened on the continent. The possessions of a Norman baron in England were
scattered far and wide, which accounts for the royal power remaining greater than
that of any individual subject. Unlike the rest of Europe, England had one
powerful family, more powerful than the family of any of the numerous nobles.
Besides, William introduced the continental system of feudalism in England.
The Normans had adopted, much earlier than the English, the hierarchy and the
ceremonial of the continental chivalric system. After the Battle of Hastings, the
Normans imposed their chivalric ideal and feudal relations on the northern world.
The feudal system, which had been originally devised for the defence against
sporadic attacks or raids, became the main factor of stability of the society, more
efficiently organised both for peace and in wartime. By the Oath of Salisbury of
1086, William increased his power furthermore as he requested that all his
vassals’ vassals should swear allegiance directly to him. All landlords swore

21
John Gillingham, ‘The Early Middle Ages’ in The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, ed.
Kenneth O. Morgan (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000) 104-105.
allegiance to William and thus a vassal’s loyalty to the king came before the
loyalty to his immediate lord.
The Norman Conquest was not followed, however, by a severe break with the
Saxon past. William preserved many of the Anglo-Saxon institutions. Moreover,
he obliged his feudal lords to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the local law courts.
He also separated the ecclesiastical courts from the secular ones, promoting thus
the church reform. However, William continued to control the church courts and
considerably reduced the power of the papacy in English affairs.
Much of William’s power depended on the efficiency of the organisation of
the country. The king had a representative in every district. He had taxes collected
and set up a solid administration of finances. For him to be able to plan the
economy, but also to have accurate information about the taxable income,
William ordered that an economic survey should be started, which is incorporated
in the Domesday Book22 in 1086. The Domesday Book is historically important,
because it offers valuable information about England at that time.
One of the major effects of the Norman Conquest is to be identified at the
linguistic level. Three languages were simultaneously used. The ruling classes
spoke French. French was also used in law courts, although the documents were
drawn up in Latin. Starting from the thirteenth century, they would be drawn up in
French. The clergy used both French and Latin. The local representatives of the
king spoke both French and Saxon. For more than three centuries, English was a
popular and spoken language, freed from the constraints of grammar, as it was
used mainly by the uneducated people. Consequently, the Norman period starting
in 1066 is noted for the clear and extensive influence of French literature on the
English one, both in form and themes. French replaced English as a medium of
literary expression, though Latin continued to be used. By the fourteenth century,
when English started being used again by the ruling classes and by the educated
people, it had become simpler and suppler. It had lost much of the original Old
English inflections, it had undergone several sound changes, and, more
importantly, it had acquired a high degree of flexibility which permitted foreign
words, French and Latin for the period under discussion, to be added to the native
stock.
The Norman Romanesque style replaced the Saxon style23 after the Norman
Conquest in 1066. From the eleventh and the early thirteenth centuries, the
Normans built numerous cathedrals and castles, including important portions of
the cathedrals at Ely and Durham, Lincoln, Winchester, and Gloucester. The
vaults replaced the flat roofs, which originally covered the naves, the side aisles
being covered with groined vaults. Among some of the characteristics of the
Norman style are the heavy walls and piers, enormous round arches and huge
columns, the long and narrow buildings.
22
Domesday Book is a written record of an economic survey made in 1086 in order to establish
the ownership and the value of the land in England. The systematic survey was meant to determine
especially how much the tenants on the land, both lay and ecclesiastical, owed the king. By giving
William complete information about the feudal estates, the Domesday Book contributed to the
increase of William’s authority as the king also knew from whom he should require oaths of
allegiance. Groups of officers called legati went to each county and asked sets of questions,
Inquisitio Eliensis, under the form of an inquiry. The answers were gathered into the Domesday
Book, originally known as Doomsday (the day of the final judgement) Book, as the judgements
referring to taxes could not be changed.
23
Saxon architecture represents Britain’s earliest style of architecture and its main features were
the thick stone walls, the small windows and the round arches.
 One of the remarkable structures built by the Normans is the White Tower,
part of the Tower of London. It was started by order of William the Conqueror in
1078 and completed in 1097 and, although restored in the eighteenth century, its
interior still has much of the original style.
Beginning with William, the Anglo-French kings considerably contributed to
the evolution of Britain. William’s authority over the nobles and the church laid
the foundations of a very strong monarchy. Moreover, the gradual character of the
conquest led to strengthening the position of the English monarchy and increasing
the power of the English kings. After William’s death, the Anglo-French kings
used feudalism to build up a strong administration and reinforce national unity. A
number of England’s representative institutions, including juries and universities,
were set up during this period.
William had three sons among which he divided his possessions in 1087.
Robert, the first born, received Normandy and William II Rufus, the second son,
got England. William II ruled England from 1087 to 1100 and, when he died in
1100 in a hunting accident, the crown of England went to William’s third son,
Henry, who profited by his brother’s, Robert, being out of the country on a
Crusade24. Henry I (1100-1135) improved the country’s administration and
organised its government. It is during his reign that the exchequer or the royal
treasury was established.
Between the reign of Henry I and that of Henry II, England found itself in a
condition of anarchy, on account of the crown being disputed between Matilda,
Henry’s daughter, and Stephen of Blois, William the Conqueror’s grandson and
Henry’s nephew. All the years of Stephen’s reign (1135-1154) were marked by
civil war and the monarchy lost the authority it had had over the barons and the
church ever since William I’s rule. Yet, although Stephen spent much of his ruling
period to resist Matilda and her attempts to take the crown, he decided to leave the
crown of England to Matilda’s son after his death.
Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, succeeded to the throne in 1154 as Henry
II (1154-1189). As Henry was also Duke of Normandy and ruler of Western
France, England may be seen as one of the provinces of an empire over which
Henry ruled. Yet, Henry II can be considered one of England’s ablest kings in that
he managed to put an end to the anarchy that had characterised Stephen’s reign
and strengthen the government created by his grandfather. Under his rule,
England conquered North Wales and regained its northern counties, also
succeeding in imposing the control over Ireland.
Henry increased the power the king, and consequently of the state, by
controlling and reducing the power of the barons. Just like William the
Conqueror, he also tried to reduce the power of the Church, thus coming into
conflict with Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was killed by four
of the king’s knights.
Henry introduced modern justice systems and court procedures and he laid the
foundations of the jury system. One of the most important aspects of his
government was that he developed the common law25 under the royal courts’

24
The Crusades were military and religious expeditions organised from the 11 th to the 14th
centuries, through which the Christian armies were trying to get back the Holy Land (the present
territories of Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt) from the Muslims. Their main outcome was that
they brought the Western civilisations into closer contact with the Eastern ones, contributing thus
to a fruitful exchange of ideas and to the development of trade, arts and craftsmanship.
administration and applicable to the whole country. He reduced thus the feudal
courts’ jurisdiction and increased the power of the king.
As a consequence, starting from Henry II’s reign, an essential feature of
England’s history is the unity and homogeneity of the kingdom. The unity
depended on the consolidated position of a powerful king, the king’s control over
the barons and the Church and the application of the common law, the royal
justice being stronger than the private one. On Henry II’s death, England is said to
have had the strongest leadership in Europe.
Henry II’s son, Richard the Lion-Hearted succeeded his father to the throne of
England from 1189 to1199. Richard spent the first part of his reign fighting in the
Third Crusade and then in France to get back the land he had lost while being
away, being in the end captured in Germany. As Richard left the administration
matters in the hands of able ministers, the government he had inherited from his
father continued to function, heavy taxation being a characteristic for this period.
Money was needed to support Richard’s wars and to pay his ransom. Richard,
who was very much like the typical knight, died in battle and his brother John,
also known as Lackland, replaced him.
John maintained a state of conflict during his reign (1199-1216). Apart from
losing Normandy in 1204, John came into open conflict with the Pope as he
refused to appoint Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury. He was
excommunicated and threatened with the invasion of England by Philip II of
France. Consequently, he surrendered England to the Pope and got it back in
1213, acknowledging it, however, as a papal fief. To be able to wage his wars,
John increased taxation and confiscated properties, coming thus into conflict with
the barons as well. Refusing to go on financing John’s wars and rebelling against
John’s excluding them from government, the barons, led by Langton, forced the
king to sign Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215. By this document, John
promised to respect the law and the feudal customs, i.e. the feudal rights and the
baronial privilege. Magna Carta sets limits to royal authority and delimits the
nature of the relationships between the king and his subjects. Out of the 63 clauses
of the 1215 Magna Carta, two, 39 and 40, demonstrate their modernity by their
still being valid law in England. The document is considered to be an important
step forward in the history of individual liberty, as it establishes a principle
according to which no person, not even the king himself, can be above the law.
John died in 1216. The barons accepted his son, Henry, though only nine
years old, as King Henry III (1216-1272), thus being able to control the
government of the country for the following sixteen years. When Henry III finally
became able to rule the country by himself at the age of twenty-five, he relied on
foreign advisers and got involved in expensive wars in Sicily and France. This
behaviour brought him into conflict with his barons who, led by Simon de
Montfort, Earl of Leicester, opposed the king, as they had done it during John’s
reign. The king’s quarrel with the barons led to the latter’s attempt, in 1258, to
control the government by electing a council of nobles, which Simon de Montfort
called ‘parliament’.26
25
This is a term used in England to refer to that law that is not passed by Parliament, but has been
developed from old customs and from past decisions of law courts.
26
The term parliament, or parlement, originates in a French word meaning ‘discussion’ and
originally referred to the meetings of Henry III and his nobles in the Great Council, which was to
become the future House of Lords. As the king needed money to wage wars, he was forced to
resort to the noblemen’s financial support. In their attempt to oppose the king’s spending,the
 The original purpose of this ‘parliament’ was to control the treasury and to
eliminate Henry’s foreign advisers. Yet, as some of the barons remained loyal to
the king, civil war broke out in 1264. Simon de Montfort came to power for a
short period of time, until 1265, when he was killed in battle, and power returned
to Henry.
Yet, it was Edward I, Henry III’s son, king of England from 1272 to 1307,
who managed to establish the country’s first real parliament, also called the
Model Parliament. Apart from the barons, who had formed Henry III’s
parliament, Edward I’s Parliament also included representatives of the counties
and towns of England, the real providers of the country’s wealth. The House of
Commons, thus set up, was considered to be a representative body in that it
included both the ‘gentry’ (knights and wealthy freemen) and the town merchants.
Edward initiated in this way the functioning of a principle that would keep valid
during the modern history of Britain, that there should be “no taxation without
representation”.
When Edward I, a Plantagenet king, took the throne of England, the fusion of
the Norman and the Saxons civilisations was almost complete. As a consequence,
Edward diverted attention from France and became more interested in bringing
the rest of Britain, i.e. Wales and Scotland in particular, under the English control.
Subsequent to the refusal of the Welsh, led by Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, to
submit to the English, Edward started a military expedition to Wales in 1277 and
in 1284 west Wales and England were united. The fact that Wales was considered
to be part of England was reinforced furthermore by Edward I’s giving his first
born son the title of Prince of Wales, title which has been reserved ever since for
the eldest son of the ruling king or queen.
Edward I’s attempt to submit Scotland was not as successful as it was in
Wales. Taking advantage of a situation of crisis generated by the succession to the
throne of Scotland in 1290, Edward I, called to settle the dispute among the
thirteen heirs, invaded Scotland. Successive incursions to Scotland and Edward’s
treatment of the Scots brought about a resistance movement, first led by William
Wallace and then by Robert Bruce. Though considering himself victorious at
various moments in his war against Scotland, Edward I died in 1307 without
being king of Scotland.27
On an overall evaluation, the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries represented a
period of prosperity for England. The administration grew stronger and it was
more efficiently organised to contribute furthermore to strengthening the king’s
position and reconsidering the relations the king had both with the nobles and
with the people. The legal system improved, as did the judges’ knowledge of legal
matters. The trial by jury gradually replaced the older system of the trial by
ordeal.28 The economy of the country developed in the sense that the cultivated
nobles were supported by the towns, interested in relaxing the heavy taxation imposed on them.
27
Edward I even managed to steal the Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, from
Scone Abbey. It represented the seat on which the Scottish kings were crowned and, by bringing
it to England and making it into part of the Coronation Chair, Edward believed that he would be
accepted king by the Scots. Removed several times from Westminster Abbey by the Scots, who
saw it as a symbol of their independence, the Stone of Scone was returned to Scotland in 1996.
28
The origins of the jury system are to be found in Middle Ages England. The new system
replaced that of the trial by ordeal. The ordeal of cold water and the ordeal of hot iron were two of
the mechanisms used in the latter type of trial. In 1215, by order of Pope Innocent III, the clergy
no longer participated in the ordeal, the system thus losing the sanction of the Church. The twelve
neighbours originally chosen by the accused to give their evidence and help him prove his
land increased. Sheep raising became an important aspect of England’s economic
life, the sale of wool becoming consequently a significant aspect of England’s
trade. London and other newly established towns turned into centres of trade and
wealth. The population of the country increased being at the time double what it
was in 1066. The monasteries played an important part in the rural development
of the country, their wealth being demonstrated by the large number of cathedrals,
abbeys and parish churches built during this period. The monasteries were notonly
centres of wealth, however. They also preserved their older privilege as centres of
learning. The Franciscans and the Dominicans, arriving in the thirteenth century,
contributed to improving preaching, but also the quality of learning in
universities. It is in this period that England’s most reputed universities, Oxford
and Cambridge29, were established.

The Later Middle Ages

The fourteenth century was a century of political, social and religious unrest
in Europe, which considerably affected Britain as well. It was a “century of war,
plague and disorder,”30 but it also was the period associated with the age of
chivalry.
Edward I’s successor, Edward II (1307-1327), was a weak king. Defeated in
the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, he gave up the idea of conquering Scotland.
As he tried to free himself of the baronial control, Edward II was forced to
abdicate in 1327, leaving the crown to his son, Edward III (1327-1377). The new
king, who tried to prove as able a king as his grandfather, diverted attention from
Scotland to France and initiated the Hundred Years’ War, an armed conflict
between England and France lasting with intermittence from 1337 to 1453. The
ruling families of the two countries had disputes over territories in France and the
right of succession to the French throne. The nature of the conflict between
England and France, i.e. national rather than local, led to its being considered one
of the important aspects of the period of transition from the Middle Ages to the
Renaissance. The English victories at Crécy and Poitiers contributed to the
English re-establishing control over their former possessions in France, adding
only a new, but valuable one, the port of Calais. By the end of the century,
however, all previous gains had been lost. Yet, the benefit of the war for the
English was of a spiritual, rather than material, order. The Hundred Years’ War
contributed to a large extent to the development of a new national awareness. In
time, this helped put an end to the subordination of the English culture to the
French one, which had been dominant in England since 1066.
In 1348-1349, the Black Death31 spread to almost all corners of Britain,
leading to a dramatic reduction of the population by a third. As a result of the fall
in population, economic changes occurred. Wealth concentrated in the hands of

innocence gradually changed into a court to try the accused persons. The importance of the jury
system resides in its being a guarantee of individual liberty and a means of protection against
tyrannical government.
29
The University of Oxford is the oldest institution of higher learning in Great Britain and in the
English-speaking world. It was established in the mid-12th century in the town of Oxford. The
University of Cambridge, founded in the 13th century, is the second oldest university in Britain.
30
David McDowall, An Illustrated History of Britain (Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex: Longman,
2000) 43.
31
The name under which the plague was known in the Middle Ages, name by which people
designated all fatal epidemic diseases.
the survivors who, nevertheless, had to pay the remaining workers several times
more than they used to before the plague. Thus, the drop in population contributed
to a consolidation of wealth, especially of the middle classes, while,
paradoxically, leading to a decline of the economic position of landlords and
merchants, who had to pay higher wages to workers. To keep the economic and
social situation under control, The Statute of Labourers was passed in 1351 to
regulate the level of wages and the price of food. To increase their income, the
landlords imposed higher fees on their tenant farmers, which was one of the main
causes of the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Yet, the manorial system was
gradually replaced by that of cash payment, which eventually led to the
disappearance of serfdom.
The Peasants' Revolt32 was mainly directed against Richard II's poll tax,
but it also showed people’s dissatisfaction with the authority of the Church.
Besides, the move of the pope from Rome to Avignon and the Great Schism 33
increased furthermore the English people’s dislike of the institution of the church
and disrespect for the papacy. Thus, the increasingly literate English, benefiting at
the time from a larger number of religious writings, started challenging the
authority of the Church. The Church condemned this new trend in religious
experience, mainly encouraged by an increased level of knowledge, as heresy.
The ideas of the later Protestant reformers during the Renaissance were
anticipated by the views of John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, who dared
criticise various bad practices common in the Church at that time, including the
corruption of this institution. Wycliffe maintained that it was the Bible, not the
Church, that was the most important religious authority and that everybody should
be able to read the Bible in English. For this reason, he got involved in translating
the Bible from Latin into English. Wycliffe’s beliefs were supported by a group
of people known as the Lollards, who followed the doctrines 34 that would underlie
the process of the Church of England becoming independent of the Roman
Catholic Church in the sixteenth century under Henry VIII. For the time being,
however, Henry IV (1399-1413) strongly opposed ‘lollardy’ and persecuted the
Lollards, whose spirit would only revive one century later in the ideas of
Protestantism.
The later Middle Ages represented a period of social, political and religious
unrest. Yet one of its significant features was chivalry. In association with
Christianity, chivalry transformed the otherwise heterogeneous Western Europe
into a homogeneous community of ideals and beliefs. Starting during Edward III’s
reign, England got integrated into the European system of values, translated into
the ‘code of chivalry’, deeply infused with the ideas of Christianity.
Chivalry implied the code of behaviour followed by the medieval knight.
Originating in the development of horse-mounted cavalry and feudalism in the
ninth and tenth centuries, chivalry continued to exercise a lasting influence on
models of behaviour of the nobility even during the Renaissance and definitely
contributed to the shaping of well-defined cultural models throughout the Middle
Ages.
32
Also known as Tyler's Rebellion by the name of the ex-soldier who led it, Wat Tyler.
33
The term refers to the period 1378-1417 when two and then three popes simultaneously claimed
to be the legitimate head of the Western church.
34
The Lollards believed that the Bible was the most important authority to guide faith. They
opposed the doctrine of transubstantiation and were against the use of images in worship. They
also insisted on the idea that the clergy should live a simple and austere life.
 The rather strict relationship established between the nobility and their
mounted warriors was dictated by military and economic reasons. To support the
cavalry, the lord gave land to the mounted warrior in return for the latter’s
military service, while the land offered the knight the main source of income. In
time, knighthood became a privilege of the men of noble birth. An unwritten
contract, whose main terms were loyalty and bravery, was established between the
king or the feudal lord and the knight.
The code of chivalry, which originally implied bravery in battle and loyalty to
the lord, was later on adjusted under the influence of Christianity and also
included religious piety. As the ideals of courtly love expanded, the code of
chivalry presupposed refined social manners as well.
At the court of Edward III, the interest in the legendary King Arthur was
revived and the Order of the Garter35 was founded in 1348 following the model of
the Arthurian Round Table.
The chivalric ideals continued to survive in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, the military and economic aspects fading away with the disintegration
of the feudal system. The code of chivalry and the idea of courtly love would
become central not only to an important part of the literature of the Middle Ages,
but also to the literature of the subsequent centuries, as a form of reinterpretation
and adaptation of the concept of chivalry.
On Henry IV’s death in 1413, Henry V (1413-1422) succeeded to the throne
of England and maintained peace over a united and strong kingdom. He turned his
attention to France once again and managed to get hold of most of Normandy,
having considerable chance to become king of France by his marriage to the
French king’s daughter. He died, however, short before the King of France and it
was his son, Henry VI (1422-1461), a baby at that time, that inherited the thrones
of England and France.
During Henry VI’s reign, a series of dynastic civil wars to last until 1485 was
started. Known under the name of the Wars of the Roses, they were fought
between the supporters of the two most powerful families in England at the time,
the House of Lancaster, whose symbol was a red rose, and the House of York,
whose symbol was a white rose. Each of the families aimed at making its member
the king of England. Although each side was successful at different times, the
wars only ended when Henry Tudor (House of Lancaster) fought the decisive
Battle of Bosworth and defeated Richard III (House of York), becoming King
Henry VII (1485-1509), founder of the Tudor dynasty. Henry Tudor married
Elizabeth of York ending thus the fighting and uniting the two houses.
35
It is the highest and oldest order of chivalry in England, composed of the sovereign, the Prince
of Wales and 24 knights, as well as of members of the British and other foreign royal families. The
order use Saint George's Chapel in Windsor Castle as their meeting place once a year, the same
place where King Arthur’s Round Table was supposed to have been. The motto of the order is
believed to originate in an incident that took place at King Edward’s court. A lady who dropped
her garter before the whole audience was saved from embarrassment by the king himself, who
picked the garter up and fixed it to his own leg, saying: Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame on him
who thinks evil of it). The badge of the garter is displayed on the coats of arms of the members
and the motto is still used nowadays.
 It is generally stated that the Wars of the Roses practically destroyed the idea
of kingship in England. It seems, however, that the real outcome of the war was
exactly the opposite. The power of the Crown increased as a result of the
destruction of the old nobility and the strengthening of the financial resources of
the monarchy by the confiscation of estates.
The Church was the most important institution of the Middle Ages and God
was central to the medieval value system. As a consequence, although many
secular monuments were built during the Middle Ages, most were put up in the
service of the Church. In the latter part of the Middle Ages, there is a tendency,
however, to abandon the heavy, massive walls and piers that had characterised the
Norman period and adopt lighter, more soaring structures, which would become
the characteristic of a new style of architecture, the Gothic. The Gothic evolved
from the Romanesque, but the buildings lost in massiveness. The new structural
development was the ribbed vault36, which was thinner and lighter. It replaced the
solid stone vaults that supported the ceiling of a Romanesque church. The tall,
pointed arches replaced the round arches. The windows were also pointed and
permitted more light, which was delicately filtered through the stained glass. The
function of the heavy walls, which used to bear the weight of the vault in
Romanesque churches, was taken over by the flying buttresses37. The effect of this
architectural change was that the inside of a Gothic church became suppler and
more delicate, light coming in through large windows decorated with stained
glass. All these features account for the special, distinctive aesthetic qualities of
Gothic architecture. The outside remained, however, as massive and impressive as
that of the Romanesque churches.
One of the most famous Gothic buildings in England is Salisbury Cathedral,
unique for the unity of its Early English style38 and renowned for its tower and
spire, the tallest in Britain.
During the Middle Ages, very important changes occurred at the linguistic
level as well. In the course of four centuries, English progressed from its status of
a spoken language, used mainly by the illiterate, to that of a mature, refined
language, ready to become the proper medium of literary productions. If at the
beginning of the Middle English period English was mainly an inflectional
language, at the end of the period the relationship within the sentence were very
much like those in the modern language, depending basically on word order.
Many of the lexical and syntactical-morphological characteristics of the
English language Chaucer or Shakespeare were to use were established during the
Middle Ages: plural form in –es, simplification of the conjugation of verbs, of the
declension of nouns, grammatical gender replaced by natural gender, introduction
of words from Old Norse and Norman-French.

36
It consists of thin arches of stone, running diagonally, transversely, and longitudinally. (In
Romanian: bolta gotică sau bolta ogivală.
37
A structure sticking out from the wall of the building to support it. The arches were thus outside
the church and they evenly distributed the weight of the vault and carried it to the ground. (In
Romanian: arc butant).
38
The Gothic Age in England (13th to 15th centuries) is generally divided into three periods. The
Early English style (13th century), closer in aspect to the Romanesque, is characterised by tall,
narrow, pointed windows without decorative stonework and thick walls. The Decorated style (14 th
century) added ornamental stone carving around windows and doors. The Perpendicular (15th
century) displays most of the general features of the Gothic.
 The Midland dialect, and particularly East Midland, acquired considerable
importance during the fourteenth century, mainly because it was the dialect
spoken in the area around London, spreading south of the Thames into Kent and
Surrey. Its influence depended much on its being used by Geoffrey Chaucer and
other fourteenth-century poets in their works, as well as by its being adopted by
William Caxton39 for the printed works. Due to these circumstances, the East
Midland dialect gradually developed into the Modern English language.
Although towards the end of the period, English reasserted its status as a
medium of expression for literature, it may be generally considered that from
1066 to 1485 French literature exercised a strong influence on native English
forms and themes. This is mainly because French replaced English in ordinary
literary productions, Latin still remaining the language of the learned works. By
the fourteenth century, English became the language of the ruling classes again,
but at that time it had already undergone many of the changes that brought Middle
English and its various dialects close to Modern English, which makes it easy to
read even nowadays.
English literature in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries displays a wide
variety in spite of its still being under the influence of the French and Italian
literatures. Yet, at the end of this process of self-definition, which paralleled in a
way the process of the English language imposing itself as a language of the
educated, English literature emerged vigorous and highly indicative of the
existence of a definite national spirit. Unlike the preceding period, the medieval
period includes a large number of literary works, characteristic of different literary
modes, as well as other literary manifestations closer to the period’s religious
experience40.
Mention should be made of two of the most interesting productions which
define, even if differently, the spirit of a very complex age. One is Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight, an alliterative poem, whose author is unknown, written in
the late 1300s. Using the romance mode, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight dwells
upon the Arthurian legend and its meaning depends much on the context of
chivalry and the centrality of the a specific code of chivalry.
The other, at exactly the opposite pole, would be Geoffrey Chaucer’s The
Canterbury Tales, begun probably in 1387, which gives, in a manner very similar
to the realistic mode, a panorama of the medieval society from the point of view
of a member of the clergy. Devoid of any idealisation, Chaucer’s poem may be
considered a valuable document on the society of England during the Middle
Ages, offering at the same time an interesting, because ironic, view of religion and
the religious community of the time.

The Renaissance

The Tudors
The reign of the Tudors (1485-1603) is associated with one of the most
important periods in the culture of Western Europe, the Renaissance. The series of
39
William Caxton (1422? - 1491) is known as the first English printer. He is the one who set up
the first printing press in Britain and printed the first book in English, translated from French, in
1474. By printing books in English, Caxton considerably influenced the spelling and the
development of the language.
40
We refer to the plays performed at religious festivals called ‘mystery plays’, as well as to the
more secularised, yet still infused with the religious spirit of the age, ‘the moralities’.
literary and cultural movements known under this name started in Italy and then
spread to Germany, France, England or Spain from the fourteenth to the sixteenth
centuries. Influenced by the concept of humanism, the Renaissance41 essentially
meant a return to the values of the great ancient Greek and Roman civilisations. It
is also under the Tudors that the Reformation took place. It represented a
significant religious revolution in the Christian church as a result of which the
supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as that of the pope were put an
end to and the Protestant churches were established. Underlain by the ideas of the
Renaissance and of the Reformation, the Tudor age may be said to have initiated
the era of modern history for Britain. Just as everywhere else in Western Europe,
the mentality and way of life of the Middle Ages were altered giving way to the
spirit of a new age, whose roots, however, are to be found in the preceding period.
The main political, economic and cultural premises of the Renaissance had been
long before prepared during the Middle Ages.
The Tudor dynasty came to the throne of England after Henry Tudor, King
Henry VII, had defeated Richard III, ending thus the Wars of the Roses. There
followed Henry VIII and his three children, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
The crown passed then to the Stuart family, as all Henry VIII’s successors were
childless. After a period of instability and civil wars, the Tudors managed to
reunite the country and make it prosperous, but most important of all, they made
the church of England independent of the pope, thus turning England into a
Protestant country.
Profiting by the old nobility having weakened as a result of the Wars of the
Roses, the Tudors strengthened the financial resources of the monarchy by
confiscating the estates of the once powerful land owning nobles. Thus the
nobility no longer represented an independent political force able to oppose the
monarch and was forced instead to depend on and serve the Crown. Consequently,
by end of the sixteenth century, the Tudor monarchs had managed to centralise
government and administration, although they had failed to establish an efficient
financial system to pay for the increasing costs of government. Beneficially for
the country, the Tudors had thus to turn to Parliament, the only body that had the
right to pass laws and approve further taxes, which obviously led to increasing
Parliament’s power and its indispensability to the constitution of the country.
In spite of several uprisings during his reign, Henry VII (1485-1509) proved
very efficient, even more than any other Tudor monarch, in establishing order in
the country. He increased the authority of the Crown by reorganising in 1487 the
Court of the Star Chamber42 and strengthened in this way the royal control over
the nobles. He introduced a modern system of government and bestowed upon his
son, Henry VIII, a greatly improved financial position of the country mainly
41
The Renaissance meant the ‘rebirth’ of the belief in the superiority of the Greek and Roman
culture after a period perceived as one of cultural decline, which is not exactly true if we refer to
the preceding period known also under the name of the Dark Ages. ‘The Middle Ages’ is a better
term to designate an age of transition between the classical and the modern world and what is
certain is that, had it not been for the significant achievements of the medieval societies, we could
never conceive of the splendour of the Renaissance.
42
Created by Henry VII, the Star Chamber represented a reorganisation of the king’s council.
Under the control of the monarch, it exercised a wider civil and criminal jurisdiction, being able to
try even the nobles who could not be tried by other courts. In need of money, Henry encouraged
punishment under the form of fines. The court could also pass prison sentences, but not impose
death penalty. The court also functioned, sometimes abusing its powers, under James I or Charles
I, until it was abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641.
generated by Henry VII’s ability to re-establish England’s trading position
considerably deteriorated by the Wars of the Roses. The prosperity of the country
was also due to Henry VII’s being interested in and capable of maintaining
peaceful relationships with Austria, Spain and France.
Nevertheless, Henry VII’s main heritage was represented by a new attitude to
the merchant and lesser gentry classes, whom he turned into the new nobility, and
a correct understanding of the importance of the merchant fleet, which he
considerably developed, for the international destiny of Britain.
Henry VIII (1509-1547), Henry VII’s second son, can be seen as the typical
Renaissance monarch, powerful and confident, head of a powerful and relatively
stable state, ambitiously aiming to become Holy Roman Emperor and to extend
his control to Europe. He ended in rejecting the authority of the Roman Catholic
Church and initiated thus Protestant Reformation in England.
Careful to control the nobility and to enrich the crown, Henry VIII executed
his opponents and confiscated their estates, raised taxes and avoided getting
involved in expensive wars. Yet, his ambition, worthy of a Renaissance monarch,
was to expand England’s power in Europe. To this end, Henry VIII tried to
mediate between France and Spain, two of the powers at the time, with a view to
being in the position of controlling the balance of power in Europe.
Henry VIII’s chief minister, as ambitious as the king was and very skilful in
advising the sovereign both on home and on foreign policy, was Cardinal Wolsey.
He was a good administrator and a remarkable diplomat, playing an important
part in the country’s government by using Parliament and the royal council.
Trusting his important position in the Church as well as his persuasion skills,
Wolsey thought that he would also be able to serve his king’s purpose in the
latter’s attempt to have his divorce from Catherine of Aragon accepted by the
pope. Henry VIII had pretended that the reason for his asking this divorce was his
not being able to have a male heir by Catherine, but the true reason was purely
political. Henry had grown constantly dissatisfied with the power of the Church
and he considered it his rightful prerogative to be the one in control of this
institution. As Henry’s attempt by the pope failed, Wolsey had to face the king’s
anger and would have been executed had he not died of natural death. Henry,
however, pursued his goal and, in 1531, he persuaded the bishops to make him
head of the Church of England. Three years later Parliament passed the Act of
Supremacy43, giving thus Henry the freedom to marry Ann Boleyn, whose
children, in hope there would also be a boy, were given right to succession,
excluding thus Princess Mary. Henry VIII initiated the Reformation in England
and set up the Anglican Church.

43
Passed in 1534, it represents a series of statutes through which the pope was denied any form of
power over the Church of England. Although it represented a revolutionary measure, it was well
received by the people, mainly because it operated only minor changes in the Catholic faith and
practices. The Bible was translated into English, priests were allowed to marry, and the shrines of
saints were destroyed. Henry’s religious beliefs remained Catholic, although many people had
adopted Protestant ideas. Changes more in line with the European Protestantism would be effected
later on by the Act of Uniformity, which would impose a Book of Common Prayer for the
Anglican Church until Mary Tudor’s turning England to obedience to papacy and Catholicism
during her reign.
 Humanism
Humanism, beginning during the early Renaissance in Italy, revived the
classical learning and speculative inquiry, which challenged the church’s
monopoly of learning and led to the contesting of scholasticism as the main
philosophy of Western Europe. The invention of printing contributed to a more
rapid spreading of the new ideas in Europe. The European humanists, among
whom John Colet and Thomas More in England, started evaluating church
practices and applied the new learning to the reading of the Bible in an attempt to
offer a better and more accurate knowledge of the Scriptures. Based on the
humanists’ studies, Martin Luther and John Calvin, as well as other reformers saw
the Bible, and not the church, as the source of religious authority.

The Reformation
In England, the break with Rome differed, however, from the revolts in other
European countries, first of all because England was a nation with a strong central
government and the revolt against Rome acquired a national character. The king
did not enforce the break on his own, but through Parliament, which accounts for
this measure being fairly popular. Consequently, the revolt did not lead to the
splitting of the country into various factions, which could have ended in civil war.
Moreover, Henry VIII’s decision to break with Rome in order to be able to
divorce Catherine of Aragon made the Reformation start as a political act. The
change in religious doctrine came only later under Edward VI and Elizabeth I.
The pope’s revenues in England were cut off by legislation and his religious
and political authority was put an end to. Henry VIII’s major interest was to seize
the wealth of the monasteries, so his motivation was political and economic rather
than religious. The ideas of Roman Catholicism were never denied during Henry
VIII’s reign, just obedience to the pope was considered a criminal offence. It was
only during King Edward VI’s reign that the Protestant doctrines and practices
were introduced into the Church of England. Yet the organisation and ritual of the
Anglican Church remain in essence similar to those of the Roman Catholic
church, to such an extent that during the Elizabethan age, many believers
considered the Church of England too little reformed. Known as dissenters they
became in time members of various Calvinist sects such as the Presbyterians, the
Puritans or the Quakers.
Henry VIII’s reign significantly influenced the history of Britain because of
the results of the Reformation, noticeable as a matter of fact throughout the whole
of Western Europe. By challenging the position of the Roman Catholic Church,
the Reformation implied a transfer of power and wealth to the monarch and to the
middle classes. This rearrangement in the society’s hierarchy also derived from
the feudal nobility having lost their former political and economic privileges. In
Europe, Britain included, the Reformation contributed to political, religious and
cultural independence, encouraging individualism and nationalism in politics and
culture. The Reformation contested the supremacy of the medieval value and
authority system, giving thus impetus to the development of democratic
governments and of Europe’s economy. Encouraging personal judgement,
Protestantism may be said to have largely contributed to the growth of powerful
nation states and of modern capitalism. National languages and literatures were
consolidated as a result of religious literature, especially the Bible, being
translated into the national languages. In England, the new school founded by
Colet addressed a wider audience and education, in Latin previously, no longer
was the privilege of the clergy.
Yet although the Reformation in England was smoother than in the
continental countries, it cannot be said to have taken place without opposition.
Though the king resorted to Parliament to settle his relation to Rome, most of the
nation still remained faithful to the Catholic Church. Sir Thomas More, one of the
outstanding English humanists, would not recognise the king as supreme head of
the church, being executed for his Catholicism. In 1536, Henry VIII’s reign was
threatened by an important rebellion in the north and east of England, known as
the Pilgrimage of Grace44. Yet Protestant changes finally came to be accepted in
most parishes.
No matter how contested Henry VIII’s personality was, what is generally
acknowledged as a truth is that Henry VIII significantly contributed to the
development of English national identity. He re-established the power of the
monarchy and made it economically stronger by taking possession of the church
wealth. He acted through his two powerful ministers, Wolsey and Cromwell, who
knew to make use of the Privy Council and Parliament. Henry VIII also
strengthened the navy, which made England safe from possible attacks at sea. He
defeated the Scots twice, ensuring thus the relative peace of the kingdom against
an armed invasion from the north. Yet Henry VIII’s main contribution to the
development of a national identity was the break with Rome.
Henry’s popularity decreased as, towards the end of his life, he got involved
into continental and Scottish warfare, which forced him to sell the richest
monastic lands and to take some unpopular financial measures, such as tax raising
and coinage debasing. Henry was succeeded by Edward, his only son by Jane
Seymour, ten years old on his father’s death.
Edward VI (1547-1553) could not rule on his own and there were regents who
governed on his behalf. When he fell ill in 1553, Edward was forced to sign a will
depriving his half-sisters, the future queens Mary I and Elizabeth I, of their right
to the throne of England, in favour of Lady Jane Grey, whom Mary then managed
to depose.
The main benefit of Edward’s reign is of a religious nature. Edward supported
the principles of the Reformation and under his rule England became firmly
Protestant, making it impossible for Mary Tudor later on to bring it back to
Catholicism. In 1549, the first Book of Common Prayer was imposed and, though
it was contested by some, it finally came into general use in the Anglican Church.
Mary I (1553-1558), Henry VIII’s daughter by Catherine of Aragon, became
the legal heir to the throne on her half-brother’s death and she had Lady Jane Grey
executed. Being a fervent Catholic, Mary’s effort was directed towards bringing
Roman Catholicism back to England and re-establishing the authority of the pope.
Moreover, in 1554, she married the Catholic Philip II of Spain, very unpopular in
England, which brought about fierce opposition on the part of the Protestants.
Many religious persecutions took place during Mary’s reign, hundreds of people

44
People coming from various social groups rebelled against Henry VIII’s government in 1536,
being dissatisfied with Henry’s having rejected the power of the papacy in England and implicitly
his having imposed himself as head of the Church of England. They also disliked the growing
power and influence of Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief minister who had taken Cardinal
Wolsey’s place. The people mainly stood against the dissolution of the monasteries, which had
previously provided social and economic services.
being accused of heresy and sentenced to death. When Mary died in 1558,
Elizabeth I succeeded.

The Elizabethan Age

Elizabeth I (1558-1603) was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife,
Anne Boleyn. She had one of the longest reigns in the history of Britain and
proved governing qualities worthy of her predecessors. Coming after her highly
unpopular half-sister, Elizabeth, called Glorianna and Good Queen Bess, enjoyed
enormous popularity during her life.
In politics, Elizabeth continued to make effective use of Parliament and the
Privy Council and she developed the legal institutions of the country. In point of
religion, Protestantism was firmly established in England. Economically,
Elizabeth encouraged English enterprise and commerce developed. In foreign
policy, Elizabeth took a firm stand against the growing power of Spain and
managed to defend the nation by defeating the powerful Spanish Armada.
Culturally speaking, Elizabeth’s reign marked the climax of the English
Renaissance with an unprecedented development of poetry and drama.
The population of England and Wales almost doubled during Elizabeth’s
reign, which, also on account of harvest failures, inevitably brought about an
increase in food prices. Thus, at least the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign was one
of starvation, epidemics and unemployment. Consequently, Elizabeth’s
government had to pass what was known as the Poor Laws, transferring to local
parishes the responsibility for the poor. Legislation was enacted to regulate wages
and ensure correct prices. Elizabeth also decided to issue a new currency, stronger
and more stable, which finally contributed to long-term business development.
Elizabeth generally followed two policies during her reign. She unofficially
encouraged English sailors and explorers such as Sir Francis Drake, Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir John Hawkins to attack Spanish
ships and bring the Crown the silver and gold brought from the American
colonies. She also encouraged these adventurers and traders to settle and create
colonies. The latter policy considerably influenced Britain’s destiny during the
following centuries by leading to the setting up of Britain’s colonial empire, as
Drake or Raleigh established the first English outposts in North America.
Elizabeth understood very well that much of Britain’s position in Europe and
in the world depended on the development of trade overseas. That is why
shipbuilding practically boomed and trade, with woollen cloth as the main
commodity, expanded overseas. The merchant class significantly grew during this
period. One of the reasons for the English exploring new territories overseas was
their desire to develop trade. In 1600, the English East India Company was
granted a monopoly to trade in Asia, Africa and America.
Just as in all other matters that she considered essential to the proper
functioning of her kingdom, in religious matters Elizabeth perfected the policy of
compromise. If her father had established Protestantism by controlling the
Catholics and her half-sister had persecuted the Protestants in her effort to restore
Catholicism to England, Elizabeth tried to effect a compromise and keep under
control a still fragile religious balance. The main religious orientation in England
was Protestant, with Catholic services forbidden and the principles of celibacy and
transubstantiation abolished. Yet the official doctrine of the church was not
perceived as a matter of imposition on the part of the monarch, but rather the
result of Parliament’s decision, which also presupposed the vote of the Catholic
bishops in the House of Lords. Under the Act of Supremacy, Elizabeth tactfully
assumed the title of Supreme Governor of the Church, instead of that of Supreme
Head. What is certain is that Elizabeth considered the church inseparable from the
monarchy and she wanted the church stable. Thus she repressed any action, be it
Catholic or radically Protestant45, that challenged the stability of this institution.
What Elizabeth managed to do in this way was to hold the majority of people
together.
Elizabeth governed the country by making extensive use of the Privy Council
and Parliament that she summoned ten times during her reign to endorse her
policies and help her raise taxes. Yet, although both houses of Parliament grew in
size during her rule, Elizabeth managed to effectively keep them under control
and relied on their advice only when it suited her. She also strengthened royal
government by expanding it at the local level through increased responsibilities
given to sheriffs and justices of peace as official representatives of the monarchy.
Of middle class origin by her mother, Elizabeth chose her ministers from
among the middle class members whose knowledge of the people’s needs and
correct judgement of the country’s problems she relied on. Elizabeth’s best and
probably most loyal minister was William Cecil who guided the queen for more
than forty years in formulating her policies. Although Cecil’s main concern was
the succession to the English throne, the failure to secure it encouraged struggles
between various claimants, Mary, Queen of Scots being at their centre until she
was executed. In foreign policy, Elizabeth’s refusing to marry a Catholic prince
and her not having an heir considerably influenced England’s relations with Spain
and France, but also with Scotland whose Protestant Reformation Elizabeth
supported.
The most important event in Britain’s foreign policy under Elizabeth’s rule
was the confrontation between the English navy and the Spanish Armada. The
effort of Philip II of Spain to organise a powerful fleet to attack England was
dictated by political and religious reasons. He wanted to destroy the English navy,
which had been harassing and plundering the Spanish ships, generally with
Elizabeth’s, though unofficially given, agreement. As the leader of England’s
Catholic rival country, Philip intended to dethrone Elizabeth and reconvert
England to Catholicism, also forcing her out of the Protestant war in the
Netherlands. The defeat of the armada brought about the future decline of the
Spanish Empire and helped Britain redefine its position to the powers of Europe.
It also stimulated English nationalism, contributing to the unity of the English
nation. Yet, the victory of the English navy did not mean the end of the conflict
between England and Spain, which lasted until the end of Elizabeth’s reign.
Not having an heir of her own when she died in 1603, Elizabeth I was
succeeded by James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary Stuart. James VI of Scotland

45
They were called Puritans. They represented a radical form of Protestantism within the Church
of England in the latter part of the 16th century. The Puritans’ efforts were directed towards
reforming or purifying that church, considering it too close in doctrine to Roman Catholicism.
When the Puritans failed in their efforts to reform the Church of England, they tried to establish
separate independent congregations free of bishops. In 1620, one of the separatist congregations
sailed on the Mayflower for New England where Puritanism remained the dominant religious
force throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
became James I of England, the first king of the dynasty that succeeded the
Tudors to the throne of England and ruled the country throughout the seventeenth
century, until 1714. What Elizabeth managed to do by leaving the crown to James
was to effect, at least formally, the union with Scotland, the long dreamed-of goal
of her predecessors.
The Elizabethan age increased the role of some of the characteristic English
institutions, such as Parliament and justices of the peace, making them
indispensable to the future stability of the monarchy. Protestantism was
definitively established as the country’s religion. The defeat of the Spanish
Armada brought about further trust in the English navy. Besides the decline of the
Spanish Empire favoured the birth of the new English one, result of the exploring
and adventurous spirit encouraged under Elizabeth’s rule.
Elizabeth I’s death marked the end of the cultural period known as the
Renaissance, whose climax in England was reached during her reign.

The English Renaissance

The Renaissance is closely associated with remarkable achievements in
literature, art, and music. Although the Renaissance changes are now
acknowledged as being rooted in the Middle Ages, being the result of an
uninterrupted process, in arts the Renaissance challenged and tried to replace the
medieval tradition. Painting, sculpture and architecture were no longer seen as
solely instruments at the service of the church, but asserted their status as arts.
Science, such as mathematics, was turned to the best account in order to achieve
proportion and create perspective, one of the chief characteristics of the
Renaissance being the merging of art and science.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, various changes had occurred in society
throughout Europe, creating a favourable background for the development of arts.
Wealth accumulated, especially in towns, enabling art-loving individuals to
support artists. Moreover, the continually growing level of education turned the
townspeople into more sophisticated and demanding audiences that imposed on
the creator new form and content standards. Experimentation and innovation
became central to the Renaissance productions. In spite of its return to the
classical models, Renaissance literature tended to focus on individuality by
emphasising the beauty and complexity of the human being. It also attempted to
delimit and express a new value system consonant with the effervescence of
contemporary life.
The Renaissance was a period when, under the influence of the humanists’
ideas, people all over Europe developed stronger confidence in the dignity and
worth of the individual. Under the same influence, the Renaissance people
understood the responsibility of citizenship. They also discovered that the
bettering of the society depended on a new, more flexible education system freed
from the constraints of religion.
The Renaissance, a period characterised by intellectual effervescence, paved
the way for the future developments in the philosophy and science of the
seventeenth century. Many of the Renaissance ideas, especially those according to
which humankind rules nature, were to be found at the basis of modern science
and technology. Renaissance political thought largely influenced the future
English constitutional theory.
 In England, achievements in various arts came to be associated with the
Renaissance, and particularly with the Elizabethan age.
Choral music and the madrigal developed during this period, the foundations
of an important English musical tradition being thus laid.
In art, a new style imposed itself. The Elizabethan style used in architecture,
though rather eclectic, manifested a clear tendency towards well-ordered
symmetry, its huge windows, one of its characteristics, distinguishing it from the
castle-like Gothic.
Yet, the most spectacular development occurred in literature and the
performing arts. In a period of immense creativity, the theatre started to play an
essential role in the life of the community. It is in the sixteenth century that the
famous Globe Theatre46 was built. William Shakespeare’s, Christopher Marlowe’s
and Ben Jonson’s plays were staged at the Globe as well as at other theatres built
during this period.
Renaissance drama was the result of an outburst of creativity and
inventiveness. It evolved from the Middle Ages representations and gradually left
the church and its precincts and started to address secular audiences. English
dramatists tried to satisfy the taste of constantly wider audiences with whom their
productions became extremely popular mainly because they knew how to
combine in an artful manner the standards inspired from the classical models with
the sensationalism and flamboyance required by the popular taste. Under
Seneca’s influence, the blood and revenge tragedies, from Kyd’s simpler Spanish
Tragedy to Shakespeare’s sophisticated Hamlet, became fashionable and were
very well received in the age.
Ben Jonson’s plays, full of verve and imagination, satirising people’s lack of
good sense and moderation, marked to a great extent the future evolution of
drama, especially during the Restoration.
Poetry, represented by Sir Philip Sidney or Edmund Spenser, developed in the
direction of a greater elaboration of language to satisfy, unlike drama, the taste of
a demanding, educated public.

The Enlightenment

The Stuarts
During the Tudor age, England’s destiny was inextricably linked to that of
Western Europe, the Renaissance and the Reformation being world movements
that considerably affected the evolution of England’s political and cultural life.
Benefiting from a strong navy, England had redefined its position to the powers of
Europe. It had thus gained a new status permitting it to solve its domestic
problems without interference of the neighbours, while enabling it to play an
46
The Globe was built on the South bank of the Thames in 1599 by the English actor Richard
Burbage in partnership with Shakespeare. It was an octagonal, open-air building enclosing an
inner pit into which the stage projected. The audience could seat in the three galleries, one above
the other, surrounding the pit. The topmost gallery was covered with a thatch roof. The theatre was
destroyed by the Puritans and it was reconstructed in the 1990s copying the design of the original
structure.
important part in the world’s affairs. During the Stuart age, which was, as a mater
of fact, one of political and religious unrest, the English managed to develop a
system of parliamentary monarchy. By taking advantage of the Tudor heritage,
they also managed to establish those relations of England to Scotland and Ireland
that were to characterise modern Britain. In the same period, the English set up
self-governing communities across the ocean laying the foundations of free
English institutions in North America.
James VI of Scotland became James I (1603-1625) of England and his
greatest merit resided precisely in his uniting the crowns of the two countries. As
for the rest, the reign of the first Stuart king of England was characterised by
domestic conflict. Religiously, the Puritans grew increasingly dissatisfied with the
much too Catholic Church of England. James had previously had to cope with the
problems created by the conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics in
Scotland. Moreover, he had tried to settle it in a violent way by imposing the
power of the monarch over that of the church. In England, he manifested the same
intolerant attitude to the Catholics, which brought about opposition on their part.
It culminated in the Gunpowder Plot47 of 1605. In 1604, King James I ordered that
an English version of the Bible should be produced and used in church. Known as
the King James Version or the Authorised Version, the English translation was
published in 1611 and it is still used in many Anglican churches.
In politics, the major conflict was between king and Parliament, on account of
James I’s, and then Charles I’s, idea of monarchy by divine right. The Tudors’
Parliament had been a powerful one and the position of the House of Commons
had been significantly strengthened under Elizabeth. That is why it was a mistake
for James to disregard the claims of the Commoners. The king tried to govern
without Parliament from 1611 to 1621, but many of England’s democratic
institutions had been already put to test and gained their right to play a part in
modern Britain’s political life. Consequently, they represented a force and
Parliament in particular was expected to oppose James’ belief in the king’s divine
right. In 1628, Sir Edward Coke, who had been dismissed by James from his
office as Chief Justice for his ideas about an independent judiciary, helped
produce the Petition of Right48 forced upon James’s son, Charles I, to set
limitations on the monarch’s authority.

47
The Gunpowder Plot was a conspiracy by a group of Roman Catholics to kill James I at the
opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605. The plot was a consequence of James I’s oppressive
laws against the Catholics. Guy Fawkes was to set fire to the gunpowder stored in the cellar under
the House of Lords, but the plot was exposed and Fawkes was arrested and executed one year
later. The Gunpowder Plot is celebrated every year on 5 November in memory of this historical
event. If, originally, it celebrated a victory of the Protestants against the Catholics, it has gradually
turned into a festival enjoyed by everyone. The custom is to make a ‘guy’ of rags and burn the
ragged effigy of Guy Fawkes on top of a bonfire.
48
The Petition of Right was addressed to King Charles I in 1628 by the members of Parliament led
by Sir Edward Coke. From among the most important claims was that the king should not raise
taxes without Parliament’s approval and that no subject should be imprisoned without cause
shown. Charles signed the petition on condition Parliament approved funds to support his foreign
policy. Though the petition did not exactly contribute to the change of Charles’ governing
attitude, it became later an integral part of the English Constitution.
 Charles I, king of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625 to 1649, inherited
many of his father’s ideas, including the belief in the divine right of the king and
in the authority of the Church of England. Because of these ideas, Charles, just
like his father, came into conflict with Parliament, which finally led to civil war.
Charles summoned and dissolved three Parliaments in four years because they
refused to accept the king’s arbitrary measures relating to the subjects’ obligation
to pay for military expenditure under imprisonment penalty. These measures were
at the basis of Parliament’s claims formulated in the 1628 Petition of Right.
Although Charles signed the petition, in 1629 he dismissed Parliament and would
not summon it again for the next eleven years, during which he took exceptional
financial measures to meet his expenses. It was only in 1640 that, in need of an
army and funds to put down the rebellion of the Scots on whom he had tried to
impose the Anglican liturgy, Charles convoked Parliament again. The summoning
was only circumstantial and as Parliament refused to satisfy the king’s demands
and insisted on peace with Scotland, it was dissolved after one month only. That is
why Charles’ fourth Parliament is known as the Short Parliament. Yet, as he had
exhausted finances, in 1641 Charles called his fifth Parliament, the Long
Parliament, and he agreed to abolish arbitrary taxation and to see to Parliament
not being dissolved without Parliament’s permission. The Scottish revolt was
followed by an Irish one, which Charles was likely to put down only if he was
supported by Parliament to raise an army. Not only did Parliament refuse support,
but it also made further claims for the right of Parliament to approve the king’s
ministers. As Charles tried to impose his will by force, he aroused the country’s
anger and had to run away.

The English Civil War

Both Parliament and King then raised armies. Parliament’s supporters were
known as the Roundheads; the king’s supporters were called the Cavaliers. These
were the two sides involved in the first civil war of the English Revolution. The
English Revolution, also called the Puritan Revolution, lasted from 1640 to 1660.
It began with Charles I’s summoning the Long Parliament, it continued through
two civil wars, it also included the king’s trial and execution, Oliver Cromwell’s
republican experiments and, finally, the restoration of the Stuart heir as King
Charles II.
The first civil war ended in 1646 when Charles gave himself up to the Scots,
who, one year later, turned him over to the English Parliament. The second civil
war took place in 1648, when the army and Parliament fought against Scotland
and the king, the Scottish army being defeated by Cromwell in a battle at Preston.
The man who distinguished himself in the conflict between the royal and the
parliamentary forces was the leader of Parliament’s army, Oliver Cromwell. After
Charles’ beheading in London, he became chairman of the council of state, the
parliamentary body that governed England as a republic until the monarchy was
restored in 1660.
Oliver Cromwell (1653-1658) did not rule, therefore, as king. He was the first
commoner to govern England, but as Lord Protector and under the provisions of
England’s first written constitution. His military genius, as well as his clear
Calvinist views helped him place himself at the head of and keep together the
groups who had overthrown Charles I. He conquered Scotland and Ireland and
turned England into one of Europe’s military powers, whose empire expanded
overseas.
After the victories of Marston Moor, 1644 and Naseby, 1645 and Preston,
1648, Cromwell became one of the prominent military commanders in England.
He considered it his duty to get involved in discussions regarding England’s form
of government and the electoral reform. If, originally, Cromwell had not contested
the position of king, insisting only on the limitation of the king’s authority, after
his successive victories, he looked at himself as an instrument of God and saw the
king’s position as useless. He also considered it unnecessary that the House of
Lords should be maintained. After the king’s execution, the Commonwealth of
England was formed, ruled by a Council of State. In 1649, Cromwell had to put
down a Leveller49 mutiny in the army. Then he went to Ireland trying to shatter
the Catholic power. The next year, he won a victory against the Royalists to
prevent them from invading England and defeated Charles II and the Scots, being
acclaimed as the saviour of the Commonwealth. In 1653, Cromwell refused the
crown and was named Lord Protector. He governed with a Council of State and a
truly British Parliament, i.e. England, Scotland and Ireland were represented,
which met every three years. As Lord Protector, Cromwell was given broad
powers, especially in military and foreign affairs. Adopting a dictator-like
attitude, Cromwell tried to establish the reforms demanded by the Puritans during
all the years of the English Revolution, among which religious toleration and a
strict moral code, which he applied in the Commonwealth, even if to do it well he
had to close the theatres. In foreign policy, Cromwell’s actions strengthened
England’s position as an international power. He captured several Spanish
possessions, such as Jamaica in the West Indies or Dunkirk in northern France. He
settled a trade conflict with the Dutch, the English merchant ships sailing safely in
colonial waters.
Oliver Cromwell may be regarded as the epitome of an age in which the
middle class rose against the power of the king and of the great aristocracy. As a
Puritan, he represented a group whose religious beliefs presupposed greater
liberty of conscience, but also stricter morality. He was successful as an army
leader, but his political offer enjoyed little popularity and the revolution that he
made possible did not survive his death. In 1660, the Stuart heir took the throne
and the monarchy was restored to England.

The Restoration
Charles II’s reign (1660-1685) brought relative stability to the country after a
fifteen-year period of civil war. After Oliver Cromwell’s death, his son Richard
succeeded as Lord Protector, but as he proved able to control neither the army nor
Parliament, there followed a period of anarchy. Richard Cromwell’s resignation in
1659 made it necessary that the Stuart heir should be called back from his exile on
the Continent, paving thus the way for the restoration of the monarchy.

49
The Levellers were a 17th-century English political group during the English civil wars. They
demanded extended franchise and government reforms based on the inalienability of individual
rights. The Levellers anticipated the ideas of the American Revolution, their philosophy included
three main principles: man had certain inalienable rights beyond the jurisdiction of any
government, government authority derived from the people and the separation of powers.
 As it coincided with an almost general reaction against Puritanism, the
Restoration was, unlike the Protectorate, widely popular. And, although it was a
period of political unrest, characterised by tense relationships between king and
Parliament, culturally, the Restoration represented a period of scientific and
literary achievement.
It was for the first time in the history of Britain that Parliament summoned the
King and not the other way round, as things had happened at various moments of
crisis. Charles II was seen as the only solution to prevent anarchy from becoming
chronic in the country and to stop the dissolution of the empire abroad. Charles
was proclaimed king in 1660 and crowned one year later and, due to the special
circumstances of his accession, the authority of the king and that of Parliament
were to be seen as inseparable. Besides, Charles had declared that he would
accept parliamentary government and grant amnesty to his opponents.
Determined to govern legally, Charles II convoked Parliament, which he
preserved for eleven years. This first Parliament was Royalist and gave the king
full authority, which he delegated to Edward Hyde, First Earl of Clarendon.
Edward Hyde was Lord Chancellor from 1660 to 1667. Intent on restoring the
supremacy of the Church of England, Edward Hyde had the Clarendon Code50
passed in Parliament, which, by the restrictions imposed on the religious
dissenters, practically eliminated the possibility of Puritanism in England. Yet,
Clarendon and Charles refused to take revenge against the members of the former
Roundhead party. Moreover, they effected a compromise on the land question by
permitting the ex-Roundheads to purchase and keep land, reason for which many
of them would later become local leaders of the Whig party51.
The best-known document passed by Parliament under Charles II’s rule was
the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. Although the writ had been also used earlier in
the sixteenth century, it was only in the latter half of the seventeenth that its
effectiveness increased. After 1679, the authority of the court became more
important than the sovereign’s orders, ensuring thus the individual’s liberty in
front of arbitrary arrests. The importance of this measure resides in its being the
borderline between democracy and despotism.
In foreign policy, Charles II made an alliance with France and got involved in
the Dutch War, which, on account of the already acknowledged commercial and
50
The Clarendon Code included four acts passed by Charles II’s first parliament to secure the
power of the Church of England over the Puritan nonconformists, who had politically dominated
the previous period. The Corporation Act (1661), the Act of Uniformity (1662), the Conventicle
Act (1664), and the Five-Mile Act (1665) restored the supremacy of the Church of England and it
imposed the use of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It declared at the same time that it was
illegal to take arms against the king.
51
The Whig party emerged in the 17th century in opposition to King Charles II and James II. They
contributed to a large extent to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, through which the supremacy of
Parliament over the king was established. Supported by the British merchants and industrialists,
having religious affinities with the Protestant dissenters, the Whig party achieved control of the
government at the end of the Stuart era and remained in power for fifty years, when the Tory party
took over. Leaving front stage for seventy years, the Whigs started playing an important role
during the Victorian period, being largely responsible for the reform legislation, known as the
Reform Bills.
The Whigs derisively referred to the supporters of the Roman Catholic King James II and of the
monarchy as Tory. The Tory party was made up of the landed aristocracy and the supporters of the
Church of England.
During the 19th century the Tory Party became known as the Conservative Party and the Whig
Party as the Liberal Party, ‘Tory’ being a term still used as a synonym for Conservative.
colonial rivalry between the two countries, was highly popular. The outcome was
that England managed to get the Dutch colony of New Netherland, now New
York.
Because of his effort to become an absolute ruler, subserviently supported by
a Tory party who had adopted the policy of non-resistance to the king, Charles II
brought once more the Stuart dynasty into conflict with Parliament. In 1681, the
king dissolved Parliament and until his death he ruled without it. Charles II was
succeeded by his Catholic brother James II (1685-1688) on whom he bestowed an
almost uncontested power. Moreover, James also inherited a Tory party ready to
submit to the king, as well as a Church that would not contest the king’s divine
right.
James II tried to rely on the Dissenters against the Anglican Church and
allowed the free worship of both Dissenters and Catholics, which did nothing but
lead to greater religious tension. The king’s intolerant attitude and his appointing
the Catholics to key positions in the state increased furthermore the conflict
between the Stuart House and the English people. Afraid that James II’s son might
ensure a Roman Catholic succession, the king’s opponents proclaimed Mary,
James’s elder daughter, heiress to the throne. She ruled together with her husband,
William of Orange, from 1689 to 1694 and after her death William ruled alone
until 1702.

The Glorious Revolution

The events through which James II was removed as king in 1688 and replaced
by his daughter Mary and her husband William III are known under the name of
the Glorious or the Bloodless Revolution. Helped by Louis XIV, James tried to
regain his throne, but was defeated by William and had to run away to France
where he remained until his death. The revolution was ‘glorious’ first of all
because it was successful without bloodshed, but also because it created
constitutional monarchy. Thus the power of Parliament increased and the arbitrary
actions of the monarch were considerably limited. Mary and William were given
the crown on condition they would ratify the Bill of Rights52, which they did in
1689. They also passed the Toleration Act, through which they granted Protestant
Dissenters the freedom of worship.
In his effort to fight the territorial ambitions of France under Louis XIV,
William involved England in the War of the League of Augsburg (1689-1697) and
in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). England’s victory at Blenheim
in 1704 under the command of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough
demonstrated England’s power and gave it the right to an important position
among the other European countries. Moreover, England had learned to put its
wealth to use and increase it by raising taxes in Parliament. The Whig party
became the king’s most loyal supporter in his wars against France, first because
he was the leader of the Protestant Princes and secondly, because the war
contributed to England’s financial prosperity. To obtain the money necessary to
finance the war, in 1693 England created a permanent national debt and in 1694
set up the Bank of England, which, together with the developing stock exchange,

52
In Britain, this is the informal name attributed to the Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of
the Subjects. Yet, contrary to the what the name may be taken to mean, the Bill of Rights
stipulates the relationships between the monarch and his Parliament, in the sense that the real
power lies with Parliament and not with monarch.
contributed to imposing London as a financial power in Britain and in the world.
William’s London had become an important centre of finance and commerce, the
East India Company of London challenging the position of the rival Dutch
Company.
In the last year of his reign, to prevent the return of the Roman Catholic
Stuarts to the throne of England, William III passed the Act of Settlement 53, which
stipulated the order of succession to the throne of England. If Scotland had
subscribed to the Bill of Rights, it was reluctant to adopt the Act of Settlement,
according to which the crown passed to the House of Hanover. The English were
afraid that Scotland might try to restore a Catholic Stuart to the throne. The only
solution was the Act of Union of 1707, based on which the kingdom of Great
Britain was created. The two countries had been only formally united under the
same crown by James I Stuart in 1603 and as a Commonwealth in Oliver
Cromwell’s time. When the monarchy was restored, the two countries became
separate again. The union presupposed the joining of England’s and Scotland’s
parliaments, Scotland being represented in the British House of Commons and
receiving the same trading rights as the English.
When William died in 1702, Anne, his wife’s sister, became queen of
England, Scotland and Ireland (1702-1714) and, by the Act of Union, of Great
Britain and Ireland (1707-1714).
Relying much on the counsel of her ministers, Queen Anne continued
William’s foreign policy and directed the country’s efforts against France and
Spain in the War of the Spanish Succession, in which John Churchill, now Duke
of Marlborough won several victories. Yet, if William had been tolerant in
religious matters, Anne was a devout Anglican and in politics she inclined in
favour of the Tories rather than the Whigs. Having no heir of her own, Anne was
the last Stuart monarch and passed the crown to the House of Hanover, her
German cousin becoming King George I of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Restoration Art and System of Thought

Elizabeth’s death in 1603 was followed by a period of relative political and
religious instability, which brought about a change of tone in the literary
productions of the Jacobean period. Even if some Elizabethan dramatists
continued to write, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson in particular, their dramatic
works became darker and more pessimistic in tone reflecting a gloomier view of
the world. Plays such as John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi indicate the same
departure from the Renaissance confidence and exuberance.
During Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, the theatres were closed and with the
restoration of the monarchy, literature, especially drama, was restored to the status
and level of popularity it used to have during the Renaissance. Yet, under the
influence of French literature, the Restoration productions manifest a clear
tendency towards classicism, with rules and standards meant to discipline
imagination. The favourite genres are drama and the satire, which generally
reflect the cynicism of the age. John Dryden, the representative poet and
playwright of the Restoration, is also to be noted for his critical activity. His prose
53
Enacted by Parliament in 1701, the Act of Settlement excluded all the male heirs of Roman
Catholic religion from the throne. It was decided that unless Anne, James II’s second daughter, the
last of the Protestant Stuarts had an heir, the crown should go to Sophia, elector of Hanover, James
I’s granddaughter, and her descendants on condition they were Protestant. King George I, Sophia’s
son, became thus king of England in 1714.
work Of Dramatick Poesie, an Essay, written in 1668, is considered to have laid
the basis of English literary criticism. The Restoration is also associated with a
series of brilliant and flamboyant comedies known as the Restoration comedy.
William Wycherley’s or William Congreve’s plays set the pattern for the future
English comedy of manners.
The same classical tendencies came to be noticed in the English baroque
architecture of the seventeenth century. Influenced by the Italian style, the
architect Inigo Jones designed the austere Queen’s House, his masterpiece being
considered to be the Banqueting House in London. One of his great projects was
the restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral, his work influencing Sir Christopher Wren,
who reconstructed the cathedral after the London fire of 1666.
The premises for the development of science had been already established
during the Renaissance. Under the influence of the French scientist and
mathematician, René Descartes, one of the most influential thinkers of Western
Europe of the seventeenth century, science became Cartesian54. Isaac Newton’s
laws of motion and the idea of universal gravitation gained England its
incontestable place among the main contributors to the emergence of the new Age
of Reason. Newton became a member of the Royal Society, among whose first
fellows were Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle and Ernest Rutherford.55
Mechanistic principles were also applied to explain the organisation of the
society and human motivation. The society was seen as a mechanical system,
actuated by man’s wishes and desires. These ideas were part of the philosophy of
the representative thinker of the Restoration period, Thomas Hobbes. His theories
about nature, human behaviour and society led him to the conclusion that the
society could be held together only by strong social institutions and a powerful
ruler, ideas expressed in his work Leviathan. Hobbes’s ideas were attacked by
John Locke, who rejected the theory of the king’s divine right and the nature of
the state and insisted on the fact that sovereignty was not a privilege of the state,
but of the people. Locke’s political ideas formulated in his Treatises on
Government and Essay Concerning Human Understanding related to people’s
natural rights, the property rights, the role of the state and of the government, as
well as the rule of the majority. They clearly anticipated many of the ideas to be
found at the basis of modern democratic systems.
In the early eighteenth century, many of the philosophical, political and
scientific doctrines of the seventeenth century would foster a new view of the
world represented in Jonathan Swift’s satires, Alexander Pope’s poetry and
Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele’s essays. They would also impose Britain
as a leader in the world of thought in the Age of the Enlightenment.

The First British Empire

54
According to Descartes, reason was the only source of knowledge. The French thinker
considered that nothing could be held as true unless grounds for believing it true had been
established. Therefore, he tried to apply the rational methods of mathematics to philosophy. His
famous words “Cogito, ergo sum,” (“I think, therefore I am.”) demonstrate that one’s existence is
underlain by the clear consciousness of one’s thinking.
55
Evolved from some English scientists’ meetings, the Royal Society was founded in 1660 during
the reign of King Charles II, being granted royal charter in 1662. Originally, it was created to
contribute to the improvement of the knowledge of nature. Nowadays, its objectives, beside the
encouragement of scientific research, also include the recognition of excellence in science and the
promotion of international scientific relations and science education.
 The foundations of the British Empire had been already laid during the reign
of Queen Elizabeth I, who had constantly supported naval exploration. The
English East India Company had been set up in 1600. Yet, under the pressure of
Spain, which possessed a large colonial empire across the ocean, England’s
colonial expansion in the Americas became really noticeable only during the
seventeenth century.
The English began to settle in North America, the first permanent settlement
being established in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1620, the Puritan dissidents
founded Plymouth colony, the first colony in New England. The presence of the
English settlers was extended down the eastern coastline and in 1664 Charles II
seized New Amsterdam from the Dutch and renamed it New York. During
William III’s reign, the number of colonies in New England increased constantly
and the Hudson’s Bay Company was established for the fur trade. Britain gained a
new status as an overseas power, which gave it the right to come into competition
on equal terms with the other European powers.
In the same period, England gained a foothold in the West Indies. As the
increasing tobacco and sugar production required larger labour force, which
started to be brought from Africa, the islands were turned into a plantation
economy based on slavery.
The English also conquered the Spanish colony of Jamaica and in 1670 Spain
had to acknowledge the English possession in the Caribbean. The Royal Africa
Company was established in 1672 to provide more African labour force for the
expanding sugar economy. The economic and trade policy influenced England’s,
then Great Britain’s, colonial expansion during the seventeenth century to such an
extent that by the end of the century most of the population in the English islands
was made up of slaves.
It may be said that during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, Britain
established its first empire. It mainly covered the Caribbean and North America,
but it also expanded in the West Indies. The English presence in India came to be
noticed by the activities of East India Company, although India came under the
direct British rule only in the nineteenth century.
The expansion of the first empire was primarily due to England’s economic
policy. The colonies were established with a view to increasing the wealth of the
mother country, either as raw materials sources or as markets for the products
produced in Britain. In the following period, governmental control over the
colonies increased and the wealth of the country supported by its military
successes placed Britain in a position that would permit it to dominate the world.
Due to its military successes and colonial expansion, on the one hand, and to
John Locke’s and Isaac Newton’s contribution to the development of the system
of Western thought, on the other, Britain imposed itself as an incontestable
leading force of the world in the eighteenth century.

The Hanoverians
Under the provisions of the Act of Settlement, the crown of Britain passed to
the House of Hanover, whose members would rule the country for two centuries,
until Queen Victoria died in 1901. During this period, many of the revolutions of
the Western world, political, economic or scientific, would originate in or have a
certain relation to Britain.
 Of German origin, the first Hanoverian king, George I (1714-1727) was
unable to speak the language of the country and he never learned English. Thus he
was forced to initiate a new system of government. The monarch ruled indirectly
through appointed ministers, who had to look for and rely on support in
Parliament in order to pass laws, to raise taxes and control foreign policy. The
Cabinet was presided over by one minister, whose position was to be known later
as that of Prime Minister56. Sir Robert Walpole, on whom George I relied to set up
the directions of his home and foreign policy, is mentioned as Britain’s first Prime
Minister. Walpole, by his incontestable administrative skills, contributed to a
large extent to the strengthening of the position of the Hanoverians in Britain.
Rather unpopular in the country, George I feared the possibility of his being
replaced by the Stuart heir. Convinced that the Tories supported the House of
Stuart, George relied on the Whig party and a long period of government
controlled by the Whigs started. The main concern of Sir Robert Walpole, who
was a Whig and remained in office for more than twenty years, was to prevent the
Tories from coming to power and maintain a homogeneous Cabinet. In foreign
policy, George and Walpole’s efforts were directed towards maintaining peace,
especially by an alliance with France.
Walpole established the connection between George I’s reign and that of his
son, George II (1727-60). Like his father, George II remained more interested in
Hanover than in Great Britain and sometimes subordinated Britain’s interests to
those of Hanover, as in the war of the Austrian Succession. Yet, as long as
Walpole was retained as chief minister, due to Caroline’s, the king’s wife,
support, the country was peaceful and its wealth increased. In 1739, however,
Walpole was forced by the opposition to give up his pacifist ideas and accept the
war with Spain over the Spanish colonies. Three years later, he resigned and his
favourite ideas relating to the homogeneous Cabinet and the alliance with France
gave way to those of William Pitt ‘the Elder’, whose main goal was imperial
power and the setting up of a British Empire in India and America. The war
between Britain and France, which broke out in 1754 in America, turned into a
general European war in 1756. As a result of the Seven Years’ War57 Britain
emerged as the leading colonial power of the world. William Pitt had understood
correctly that Britain’s fortune depended more on the expansion of its colonial
empire than on its dominating Europe.
Under George I and George II, wealth accumulated and the markets for the
English goods, already existing in America and India, continued to develop by the
extension of the merchant service. The mentality of the new age had already been
shaped in the previous century based on John Locke’s philosophy and the
premises for a new freedom of the individual and for private initiative had been
created. As a consequence, Britain under the first two Hanoverian kings became

56
Originally, anyone from the House of Lords or from the House of Commons could be chosen by
the monarch to be chief or Prime Minister. Recently, the Prime Minister has always come from the
Commons and the job is given to the leader of the party with the largest number of members in the
House of Commons. The Prime Minister chooses and presides over the Cabinet. He heads the
government of whose activities he regularly informs the sovereign.
57
The Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) was fought between Austria, France,
Russia, Saxony, Sweden and Spain on one side and Britain, Prussia and Hanover,
on the other. One of its main causes was the colonial rivalry between Britain and France, each
country struggling to become the most important imperial power. Britain won and France had to
give most of its land in America, Canada and India to Britain.
the proper place for the great changes generally associated with the Industrial
Revolution to take place in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Britain’s
social, political and legal climate was favourable to change and encouraged and
guaranteed investment.

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution implied a series of economic, social and political
changes that led to the transformation of essentially agricultural economies into
industrial ones. Mechanical labour replaced the manual one, which, together with
the systematic application of scientific and technological knowledge to the
manufacturing process, brought about an increase of productivity and efficiency.
The economic changes considerably affected the society, as they generated far
more significant social changes. People left the rural areas in search of work and
moved to the rapidly growing cities, where larger business industries
concentrated. The amount of goods and services expanded. A considerable
number of people, especially belonging to the middle and the upper classes,
started to enjoy greater prosperity benefiting from the advantages of a much
improved health system. Nevertheless, the Industrial Revolution also meant the
displacement of the rural dwellers from their home areas and the crowding of
urban areas. Efficient and scientific land working generated the depletion of the
natural resources, as well as greater pollution.
The Industrial Revolution dramatically changed Britain and the British
society. New industrial towns and cities, such as Liverpool, Birmingham or
Manchester developed. They became overcrowded, their population increasing to
such an extent that by the middle of the nineteenth century half Britain’s
population lived in cities.

The American Revolution

Although William Pitt had come to be associated with Britain’s new status as
one of the most important world powers, he did not manage to have his views and
ambitions accepted by George III (1760-1820).
Unlike his predecessors, George III, born and educated in England, was less
concerned with Hanover, whose king he became in 1815. He was determined to
take an active part in Great Britain’s government and restore the old prerogatives
of the king. As the Whig ministers had held most of the powers during the reigns
of the first two Georges, George III decided to rule without the Whigs. The king’s
policies, especially those relating to the American colonies, were carried into
effect by the king’s Tory supporter, Lord North, Britain’s Prime Minister from
1770 to 1772.
To counterbalance the huge expenses generated by the imperial wars and to
reduce the national debt, George III had laws passed by Parliament to tax colonial
commodities, such as sugar or tea, and legal documents and publications. The Tea
Act and the Stamp Act passed without consulting the colonists provoked the
Americans’ opposition and represented the pretext for the American Revolution.
The Americans objected to their not being represented in Parliament, although
taxes were enforced on them.
The American Revolution (1775-1783) refers to the war between America
and Britain, which ended in Britain’s eventually recognising the United States of
America in 1783. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, stating
that the thirteen American colonies, which formed the Continental Congress, were
independent of Britain. The document also stated the new principles of that the
thirteen American colonies, which formed the Continental Congress, were
independent of Britain. The document also stated the new principles of
government making clear reference to men’s inalienable rights, such as life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as well as to their right to take part in their
own government.
On account of the stand he took in the American problem, George III and his
government were to be held responsible for the loss of Britain’s American
colonies. Moreover, France and Spain used the opportunity of the American
Revolution to strike back at the British Empire. Britain’s image outside
considerably deteriorated. Its defeat in the American wars led to the contesting of
George’s and his ministers’ ability to govern. The defeat also marked the end of
the First British Empire.
The loss of the American colonies, as well as the increasing amount of British
products available for export forced Britain to look to the east for new markets to
carry on with its international trade. The Second British Empire emerged as a
result of Britain’s quest for new markets and its belief in the concept of free trade.
Focusing more on Asia and Africa, the Second British Empire expanded all
through the nineteenth century, reaching a climax at the end of World War I, after
which, under the pressure of national movements, Britain had to grant
independence to many of its colonies. After the American Revolution, Britain
tried to increase and tighten control over its possessions in India and Canada and,
although there had been previous English expeditions to Australia, it is in the
eighteenth century that the British got really interested in colonising it. Australia
became an important destination for the British convicts and Sydney was founded
in 1788.
At home, George III solved the crisis generated by Lord North’s resignation
as a result of Britain’s defeat in the American war by appointing William Pitt58
Prime Minister. Pitt managed to restore Britain’s stability and improve its
financial position. He is also responsible for the Act of Union, passed in 1800 and
coming into effect on 1 January 1801, by which the Kingdom of Great Britain and
all of Ireland were united into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Surprising as it may seem, one of the most important events to affect Britain
during the eighteenth century was the French Revolution of 1789, although its
ideas were accepted with much difficulty by the English. The Revolution,
however, permitted Napoleon to rise and dominate the world’s stage threatening
to destroy the international balance of power. Consequently, Britain could not
afford to stay out of the European conflict known as the Napoleonic Wars 59.
Britain fought Napoleon to prevent France from controlling Europe. Its main goal
was to maintain the balance of power in Europe, on the one hand, and to defend
its empire, on the other. That was what it obtained at the Congress of Vienna,
which ended the Napoleonic Wars. A balance of power was created among the

58
He is referred to as William Pitt the Younger to distinguish him from his father, known as ‘the
Elder’. He was Britain’s youngest Prime Minister, being only twenty-four when he took office. He
was Prime Minister from 1783 to 1801 and from 1804 to 1806.
59
The Napoleonic Wars were fought from 1799 to 1815 by Napoleon in his effort to take control
of the whole of Europe. Managing to defeat most of his enemies, Napoleon was defeated by
Britain in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815.
nations of Europe, which ensured peace on the continent for the following years
and the peace of Europe permitted Britain to continue expanding its empire.

The Enlightenment
The prevailing intellectual movement of eighteenth-century Western Europe
came to be known as the Enlightenment. Challenging the traditional doctrines and
values, the Enlightenment manifested a clear tendency towards individualism and
emphasised the idea of human progress based on the free use of reason and
rational principles. Enlightenment thinking revolutionised the mentality of
Western Europe by favouring rational scientific inquiry and rejecting
obscurantism and superstition. Enlightenment thinkers pleaded for the idea of
universal human rights, which necessarily implied humanitarian tolerance.
Deism60 replaced religious dogma and revelation.
In Britain, the beginning of the Enlightenment may be traced as far back as
the Glorious Revolution, with the new ideas and principles it brought about.
Religious tolerance and a powerful Parliament became characteristics of the
British political and social life.
The bases of the Enlightenment thinking in Great Britain were definitely laid
by Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, published in 1687 and John
Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1690. The end
of the Enlightenment is generally associated with the French and the American
Revolutions. Most of the Enlightenment ideas and ideals became the driving force
behind both events, while being, at the same time, realised through them. These
ideals generated new tendencies towards spiritual liberation and free expression,
which would take shape in the Romantic art and literature at the end of the
eighteenth century. The same ideals would lie at the basis of the political
liberalism and reform system in nineteenth-century Britain.
Given the peculiarities of seventeenth-century Britain, it may be said that the
Enlightenment naturally evolved from the liberal atmosphere and cultural
effervescence of Augustan England. In the context of the profound changes
brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the colonial expansion, the
Enlightenment thinkers tried to impose a new value system meant to undermine
and replace the older social and religious order. Starting from a central principle
synthesised by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in “Have courage to use
your own reason—that is the motto of Enlightenment,” the Enlightenment
intellectuals considered human reason central, and indispensable, to both politics
and human conduct. The universe, previously believed to be under the supreme
control of a supernatural God, was now considered ruled by scientific laws and
consequently lent itself to scientific analysis based on experiment and
observation. The revolutionary discoveries in science and technology permitted
man to know nature and use it to his own benefit. The individual had, as it was
formulated in the American Declaration of Independence, the right to happiness
and this could be achieved only by eliminating all external limitations and
constraints. The free individual, a man or a woman, had the right and obligation to

60
A system of thought according to which religion should be based on reason rather than on
revelation. Although it accepted the existence of a Supreme Being or Creator as a primary cause of
the universe, idea supposed to be common to all religions, deism denied the interference of the
Creator with the laws of the universe.
reform the world in which he lived. Faith in progress and freedom of religion
were two of the favourite ideas of the Enlightenment and they definitely
influenced the whole course of civilisation in the following centuries.
Typical for the spirit of the Enlightenment was the contribution of the Scottish
historian and philosopher David Hume, whose philosophical position was
influenced by the ideas of the British philosopher John Locke. His Treatise of
Human Nature, whose ideas were condensed in An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding is one of the key works that laid the basis of the tradition of British
empiricism, by trying to demonstrate that people could be certain only about what
was directly taken in through their senses.

Enlightenment Art and Literature

The Enlightenment ideas find their reflection in the neoclassical art and
architecture that developed in Europe and North America in the later half of the
eighteenth century. The neoclassical art, inspired by and trying to assimilate the
values of the Greek and Roman ones, became characteristic for an age whose
ideals were considered to be rivalling with those of the ancient Roman and Greek
democracies. The productions of the British neoclassical artists, including the
portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds and George Romney or Thomas Gainsborough’s
land or seascapes, observe the principles of order, logic and proportion. The same
tendency can be noticed in the style of the Scottish architect and designer Robert
Adam, who redesigned a number of stately English houses, such as Osterley Park
House, introducing the neoclassical style to Great Britain.(Picture)
The literature of the period is characterised by reason, moderation and
simplicity. The later seventeenth century and part of the eighteenth century were
dominated by a similar neoclassical view. Looking back on the ancient Greek and
Roman literary works, considered to have already reached perfection, the British
creators try to write according to clearly established rules. Aristotle’s Poetics and
Horace’s Ars Poetica substantially influenced neoclassical literature and the
neoclassical view according to which art must delight and instruct at the same
time. The genres and species61 of classical literature became the favourite forms
used by the neoclassical writers. The neoclassical doctrine was best synthesised in
Boileau’s L’Art Poétique and Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism.
In the context of the Enlightenment, Dryden’s and Pope’s poetry represents
the creator’s effort to attain that perfection of form that could be achieved only
through human reason.
The preoccupation with the power of reason and good sense, the belief in
human progress and the tendency towards individualism characteristic of the
eighteenth century also encouraged the production of a large number of prose
works, such as Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels or Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
A new popular, though highly Protean, form emerged in the century. The
novel was discovered as the best means to represent the changing reality of the
time. Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne or Jane Austen used
the novel to express their view of the complexity of the individual and the power
of individualism, as well as of a world subject to constant change.
Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s Spectator imposed a new prose style,
satisfying audience’s taste for popular journalism, while taking this opportunity to

61
Tragedy, comedy, ode, epistle, satire, epigram, epic or elegy.
offer witty criticism of their contemporary society in a style characterised by
reason, moderation and common sense.

Romanticism
Towards the end of the century, there occurred in Europe a profound shift in
the attitudes to art and human creativity generated by a reaction against the
ordered rationality of the Enlightenment, perceived as mechanical and artificial.
Paradoxically, Romanticism defined itself by challenging the very same principles
in which it originated. Unlike neoclassicism, Romanticism tried to restore
imagination and aspiration as the main privilege of the individual. The romantic
age stressed emotion over reason.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, painters like John
Constable and J. M. W. Turner, who exercised a clear influence on French
impressionism, returned to nature as a source of inspiration, emphasising its
beauty and force. Far from observing rules that could have generated relatively
similar artistic responses, the Romantic paintings may be said, however, to share a
specific approach, highly imaginative, capable of suggesting intensity of emotion.
In literature, Romanticism subordinated reason to intuition and passion and
was characterised by the cult of nature and an interest in the past and the exotic.
English Romanticism emerged at the end of the eighteenth century with the
writings of William Blake and William Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads.
The rejection of the artificiality of neoclassical conventions brought about a
revival of lyric poetry. Wordsworth and Coleridge were followed by a second
generation of Romantic poets represented by Byron, Shelley and Keats. A new
wave of women novelists started creating in Britain during this period. Mary
Shelley and the Brontë sisters wrote novels with a powerful imaginative force,
trying to overcome the prejudice against women writers.

The Victorian Age

George III continued as King of Great Britain and Ireland until 1820. Yet in
1811 his already declared mental illness made it impossible for him to rule and his
prerogatives were taken over by his son as Prince Regent until the king’s death.
George became king as George IV (1820-1830). It is, however, not surprising
that, though George IV, king George III’s eldest son, and then his brother,
William IV ruled the country until 1837, the nineteenth century in Britain’s
history is generally known as the Victorian era or age, name derived from that of
Queen Victoria (1837-1901).
On account of his profligacy and extravagance, George IV was better known
as “the first gentleman of Europe” rather than as King of Britain and Ireland. The
only important document his reign is associated with was one whose passing in
Parliament he opposed as a matter of fact, the Catholic Emancipation Act62.
William IV was king of Great Britain and Ireland (1830-37). His reign meant
no more than his brother’s did except for the first Reform Bill of 1832 passed
under his rule. To have the bill passed in the House of Lords dominated by the
Tories, William IV created fifty new Whig peers to counterbalance the Tory
opposition. The Reform Bill of 183263 was the first in a series of acts of
Parliament passed in the nineteenth century that contributed to the
democratisation of the electoral process and brought about electoral reform. By
redistributing the seats in Parliament and eliminating certain restrictions relating
to residence and qualification, the act almost tripled the electorate. It also
increased the representation of Ireland and Scotland. Its importance resided in the
fact that it generated a transfer of political power from the aristocracy to the
middle classes, from the House of Lords to the House of Commons.
Most of the significant changes that characterised nineteenth-century Britain
took place, however, under Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Her reign was the
longest in the British history, which is why it came to be known as the Victorian
age. Moreover, Victoria’s life principles and ideals tended to extend to an entire
nation. Devotion to family, the sense of responsibility or obedience to law came to
be accepted as standard conduct during the Victorian era. The new mentality
contributed much to the period being perceived as a conventional, but also as a
highly stable one in spite of the social, political and economic dynamism that
characterised it. It is against this background of apparent stability and
conventionality that much of the renewal associated with the twentieth century
would define itself.
Victoria’s reign coincided with Britain’s greatest period as a world power.
The British Empire expanded and reached its climax in the latter half of the
nineteenth century. Victoria was queen of the United Kingdom and Ireland, but
she also was the official head of an empire that included Canada, Australia, India,
New Zealand, and large parts of Africa.
Queen Victoria’s Britain was the world’s most developed industrial nation.
The Industrial Revolution continued to affect the country’s evolution throughout
the whole of the nineteenth century. The unprecedented industrial development
was at the basis of the Victorian people’s belief in progress, but it also generated
the need for further social and political reform. Child labour was one of the
aspects subject to reform. Laws were passed to limit the number of hours children
could work and the age under which they could not. Child education became an
issue in the period and education acts were adopted to help establish public
schools in the local districts and make education compulsory for children from
five to ten. The mushrooming industrial towns and their increasing population
62
Passed in 1829, this statute granted political and civil liberties to Roman Catholics in Great
Britain and Ireland. The act replaced the anti-Catholic laws initiated ever since Henry VIII’s reign,
according to which the Catholics were not allowed to buy or inherit land, practice law or vote. By
the Catholic Emancipation Act, the Catholics were granted even the right to hold office in
Parliament.
63
The Reform Bill of 1832 abolished the ‘rotten’ boroughs, i.e. with no or small population, and
the ‘pocket’ boroughs, i.e. whose representatives were controlled by influential landowners, in the
sense that their representation in Parliament decreased, while the representation of the new
industrial cities increased. By getting rid of the ‘rotten’ boroughs, the Reform Bill led to a more
representative government. By taking measures against the ‘pocket’ boroughs, it eliminated
corrupt electoral practices, such as bribery.
imposed measures in the field of public health, sewerage and water supply
systems.
To solve problems relating to wages, working conditions and hours, workers
began to organise themselves in trade unions, whose existence and right to strike
were recognised by the government in the 1870s. The labour unions gradually
grew in number and force until they came to influence the British politics. The
Labour Party formed at the beginning of the twentieth century from the
representatives of the unions imposed itself later in the century as one of the two
major political parties in Britain.

Reform Movement
The political reform movement in Britain from 1838 to 1848 is known as
Chartism or the Chartist movement. The programme known as the People’s
Charter aimed to improve the political system by demanding the right to vote for
all adult male citizens, the right to vote in secret, annual parliamentary elections
and the right to become a Member of Parliament without possessing land. The
Chartists’ programme openly supported and signed by more than three million
people was rejected by Parliament three times, in 1839, 1842 and 1848. Yet, in
spite of Parliament’s opposition, all the Chartists’ demands, except for annual
parliamentary elections, were met and they were turned into law later on the
nineteenth century or at the beginning of the twentieth.
The Reform Bill of 186764 extended the right to vote to urban dwellers and the
Reform Bill of 188465 enfranchised the agricultural workers as well. The right to
vote in secret was introduced in 1872, but all men and women got the right to vote
only in 1918. Result of the changing social situation of Britain, all these acts were
the expression of a constant need for reform movement characteristic of
nineteenth-century Britain. Although they were far from solving the social
inequity and the problem of representation, they meant a considerable step
forward in the democratisation of the political process.
Victorian Politics
Two important political parties emerged during the 1830s and came to
dominate the Victorian politics. The Whigs in Parliament created the Liberal
Party, whose policy envisaged government reform, free trade and the
enfranchisement of a larger percentage of Britain’s population. The Conservative
Party, evolved from the former Tory Party, continued the Tory policy as
supporters of the monarchy and Britain’s imperialist tendencies. Consequently,
the contest between the outstanding leaders of these two parties became a
characteristic of the Victorian period. Benjamin Disraeli, leader of the
Conservative Party in 1846, was Prime Minister of Britain in 1868 and from 1874
to 1880. William Gladstone, leader of the Liberal Party, was Prime Minister of
Britain four times, 1868 to 1874, 1880 to 1885, 1886 and 1892 to 1894. The two
political rivals represented the leading figures of British politics for almost half of
the Victorian era and considerably influenced the course of Britain’s history

64
The Reform Bill of 1867 created a number of new boroughs and increased the representation of
the industrial cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester; it also enfranchised the
householders in the boroughs, who were mainly working men.
65
The Reform Bill of 1884 enfranchised the workers and the agricultural labourers, almost
doubling the electorate and making representation proportionate to the male population.
during the latter half of the nineteenth century, both in domestic and in foreign
affairs.
In spite of his Conservative views, Disraeli contributed to the reform process
in Britain. He extended the suffrage to the working classes by introducing the
Reform Bill of 1867. He also managed to have legislation passed to improve
housing and the working conditions for the poor. However, his major
achievements as Prime Minister were registered in foreign policy, where his goal
was to protect and expand the British Empire. In 1875, he managed to purchase
half of the Suez Canal, increasing thus Britain’s influence abroad. Three years
later, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the Russian-Turkish War,
Disraeli gained a diplomatic victory at the Congress of Berlin and, though Russia
was victorious, he managed to prevent it from extending in the Mediterranean. In
1876, faithful to his imperialist views, Disraeli created the title of Empress of
India for Queen Victoria.
William Gladstone was a keen supporter of free trade and parliamentary and
social reform. The Reform Bill of 1884 increased enfranchisement by extending
the right to vote to practically all the adult male population of Britain. The
Education Acts passed while he was Britain’s Prime Minister were the expression
of Gladstone’s effort to create a national elementary education system, by
establishing public schools in the local districts66 and making education
compulsory for children from five to ten67. Gladstone was confident that
government reform could contribute to improving the life of the British. He also
believed in the possibility of improvement for people all over the world, his views
being essentially anti-imperialistic. Gladstone imposed the concept of a strong
government and thus created the image of stability that Victorian Britain is
generally associated with. At the head of a very strong Liberal Party, he was seen
as a symbol of the reform movement during the Victorian era.
In domestic affairs, Gladstone’s greatest efforts were directed towards finding
a solution to the problem of governing Ireland, as the Irish, who had fought for an
independent Ireland for centuries, demanded independence from British rule.
Gladstone tried to solve the Irish problem by settling first the religious issues,
which had been the main cause of the Irish-British conflict for a long time. He
thus passed laws that removed the Anglican Church as the nation’s official
church.
Although Gladstone proved sympathetic to the Irish grievances and took
action to provide solutions, the Irish nationalists still insisted that the British rule
should be overthrown and a free Irish state should be established. Charles Stuart
Parnell led the Irish resistance, violence against the British officials increasing
furthermore. Gladstone tried several times to introduce home rule for Ireland, but
he failed, which brought about violent conflict between Britain and Ireland68.
Although Gladstone’s views were mainly against the Empire and the British
expansion brought about discussions on morality in the age, the British self-
confidence and trust in the potential of the individual were generated by Britain’s
having gained an unprecedented position of power in the world. The Second
66
The Education Act of 1870 stipulated the responsibility of the local districts to establish public
schools supported by local taxes.
67
Passed in 1881.
68
In 1921, most of Ireland gained its independence. Yet the violent conflict continued to represent
a problem in Northern Ireland, where the Protestant majority voted to remain part of the United
Kingdom. Unfortunately, the conflict escalated in the latter half of the 20th century.
British Empire represented a source of pride for the British, no matter how
contradictory the opinions related to it may have been.

The Second British Empire

If the First British Empire had been essentially based on the economic
relations between the mother country and its colonies, being the result of people’s
effort to explore and develop trade, the Second British Empire was the result of
political and military actions known as imperialism. Imperialism implied the
military domination of the native peoples who were compelled to recognise the
efficiency of the British institutions transplanted in the colonies and to observe the
superiority of the British and European value system. If the First British Empire
meant setting up colonies in little populated areas, which necessarily implied
moving the native population aside, the Second British Empire involved the
domination of the people in the colonies.
In the nineteenth century, the attention of the British shifted from the west to
the east and Britain had its most important dominions in the South Pacific, South
Asia and Africa. The jewel of the Empire was India, where the British had first set
foot in the eighteenth century. By imposing their own institutions and values in
India, the British managed to create a unified country out of the many separate
kingdoms and principalities. India was ruled through governors-generals, whose
efforts were directed towards having the British law and civil service system
accepted on account of its unquestionable superiority. An inevitable clash of
cultures occurred, mainly because, though more capable of controlling poverty
and disease, the British looked down upon the Indians, considering them less
cultured than the Europeans. In 1828, English replaced Persian as the official
language of government in India. The British people’s lack of respect for native
traditions caused widespread resentment among the Indians against the British
rule. The Indian soldiers’ rebellion69, though put down by the British, made the
British reconsider their relations with India and instead of trying to anglicise it,
they tried to govern by also assimilating the Indian traditions.
Britain also expanded into Africa, entering the fierce competition between the
European powers over the wealth of the eastern coast of the continent. The British
drove the French from Egypt and, through Disraeli’s effort, gained control of the
Suez Canal. The ambition of the British was to control all the eastern side of the
African Continent, which provided a much dreamed-of wealth of diamonds and
gold. The British ambition, translated into their effort to establish a railroad from
Cairo to Cape Town, generated a state of conflict between Britain and the other
European powers, especially Germany and Holland70.
Although the middle of the nineteenth century was characterised by relative
stability in imperialist matters, in the sense that Britain was more interested in
making its possessions function efficiently rather than in expanding its empire, in
1841, the British occupied Hong Kong, enhancing thus their trade opportunities in
southern China.

69
The Sepoy Rebellion took place in 1857. ‘Sepoy’ was the name under which the Indian soldiers
were known.
70
The Boer War (1899-1902) broke out between the British and the Boers, who were descendents
of the original German and Dutch settlers. The Boers had founded Transvaal and the Orange Free
State, two independent republics in south Africa, of which the British wanted to take control.
 In the same period, as the concept of responsible government71 imposed itself,
Britain started withdrawing militarily from certain colonies. It only reserved its
right to control foreign affairs and get involved in external defence. Thus, Canada
and the Australian colonies were granted responsible government.
The expansion and the strengthening of the empire increased Britain’s
international prestige, reason for which Queen Victoria herself preferred the
Conservative Benjamin Disraeli to the Liberal William Gladstone. As a matter of
fact, the Conservatives dominated Britain’s government during the last decade
and a half of Victoria’s reign, which was, to a certain extent, evidence in favour of
the Conservatives’ imperialist policy being also preferred by the British nation as
a whole. As a matter of fact, Queen Victoria came to be identified with the
nineteenth-century empire building, which is why she reached the peak of her
popularity towards the end of her reign. It is also on account of the prestige given
by the empire that the Victorian era gave an impression of continuity and stability,
in spite of its also being an age of contrast, characterised by dynamism and
change.
Britain became one of the most powerful industrialised nations of the world.
Britain’s undoubted position of power was the main message that the World
Exhibition, inaugurated on 1 May 1851 by Victoria and her husband, Prince
Albert, transmitted to the whole world. In a letter addressed to her uncle, King
Leopold of Belgium, Victoria synthesised the spirit of enthusiasm that had
animated the organisation of the British exhibition of 1851 and given the world
the best evidence of Britain’s uncontested position, engendering a nationwide
feeling of pride and success. “I wish you could have witnessed the 1st May 1851,
the greatest day in our history, the most beautiful and imposing and touching
spectacle ever seen, and the triumph of my beloved Albert. Truly it was
astonishing, a fairy scene. Many cried, and all felt touched and impressed with
devotional feelings. It was the happiest, proudest day in my life, and I can think of
nothing else. Albert’s dearest name is immortalised with this great conception, his
own, and my own dear country showed she was worthy of it. The triumph is
immense, for up to the last hour the difficulties, the opposition, and the ill-natured
attempts to annoy and frighten, of a certain set of fashionables and Protectionists,
were immense; but Albert’s temper, patience, firmness, and energy surmounted
all, and the feeling is universal. You will be astounded at this great work when
you see it! - the beauty of the building and the vastness of it all. I can never thank
God enough I feel so happy; so proud. Our dear guests were much pleased and
impressed.”72
‘The building’ Victoria was so proud of was the Crystal Palace73, which was
certainly intended to impress and suggested Britain’s position as the leading force
during the industrial age. Entirely built of cast iron and glass, the Crystal Palace

71
i.e. government by the citizens of a colony
72
The Letters of Queen Victoria, A Selection from Her Majesty’s Correspondence between the
Years 1837 and 1861 (London: John Murray, 1907).
73
The Crystal Palace in London was designed especially for the Great Exhibition of 1851 by the
English architect Joseph Paxton. Entirely made of cast iron and glass, the building of the Crystal
Palace radically challenged the methods and materials of traditional architecture, iron replacing the
traditional masonry of stone or brick. Benefiting by the advantages of mass production and
prefabrication, a feature of the Industrial Revolution, Paxton managed to erect the building in the
record time of six months. Following Paxton’s model, Gustave Eiffel designed the Eiffel Tower in
Paris in 1889.
epitomised the principles of the Industrial Revolution and anticipated the design
of the later industrial construction.

Victorian Art and System of Thought

The Victorian era developed a style of architecture and furniture of its own.
Rather eclectic, the Victorian style emerged out of the tendencies in the age to
adapt earlier styles to the needs of the industrial age. The Gothic Revival style can
be seen at its best in the building of the Houses of Parliament designed by Sir
Charles Barry in 1835 and completed in 1860. The same style was used for the
Tower Bridge, opened in 1894, which is also acknowledged as a masterpiece of
modern engineering.
The apparent stability of the Victorian era was the result of a solid and
coherent value system. Faith in God, morality, honesty, devotion to hard work and
to family life, patriotism were all qualities embodied by the Queen and thus came
to be associated with the monarchy as the guarantee of stability of the Victorian
society.
There was, however, an important discovery in science that challenged the
prevailing belief of Western people, according to which every thing that existed
was God’s creation. Darwin’s theory of evolution essentially influenced not only
life and earth sciences, but also all modern thought. It was to challenge even the
moral premises of the British imperialist tendencies, which was going to be felt as
a clearer influence at the turn of the century.
The social and political developments in the Victorian era brought about the
advent of a materialistic philosophy, thinkers and writers becoming further
interested in the progress of the individual and of the society based on the
development of education and growth of democracy. The British philosopher and
economist, who considerably influenced the nineteenth-century thought, was John
Stuart Mill, whose utilitarian doctrines74 lie at the centre of the Victorian system
of thought. Mill’s views were seen as radical in the age, as he supported
innovating ideas such as equality for women75, compulsory education or birth
control.
Some of the thinkers of the Victorian age developed specific attitudes as a
reaction against the materialism and commercialism of the period. Thomas
Carlyle’s idealist philosophy was an attempt to recover the worth and nobility of
life by means of work, courage and the discovery of the godlike in man. John
Ruskin, writer and artist, believed that beauty and vitality could be reached only
by getting rid of the ills of the industrial society. A believer in social justice,
Ruskin supported the idea of education for the working people. Scholars like
Walter Pater proposed a possible escape from social problems by withdrawing
into aesthetic hedonism.
Moving away from Romanticism, the Victorian poetry became more
intellectual and rational. The Victorian poets themselves addressed issues
characteristic of the Victorian age, developing an interest in problems relating to
social change, religious faith or political power. Alfred Tennyson, Robert
Browning and Matthew Arnold are the representative poets of the Victorian age.
74
Utilitarianism represents the system of ideas according to which the useful is the good and good
are those actions that produce happiness. It is argued that governments should try to produce the
greatest happiness to the greatest number.
75
Mill’s supporting the right to vote for women in the discussions over the Reform Bill of 1867
contributed to the formation of the suffrage movement in the early 20th century.
Their poetry, marked by the tendency towards meditation, introspection and
emotional analysis, has clear philosophical and ethical dimensions, anticipating in
technique the evolution of modern poetry.
From among all literary genres, however, the novel was the most sensitive to
the dynamism and change of the Victorian period. That is why it became the
dominant form during this period, proving able to be record the contrasting
aspects of an apparently stable society. Realism was the creators’ favourite mode
of writing, gradually replacing the romantic one. The novelists’ literary effort
clearly went in the direction of capturing the individual problems and social
relationships. From Jane Austen to Thomas Hardy, whose works marked the
beginning and end of a century of unprecedented achievement in the field of novel
writing, the Victorian novelists developed a keen sense of observation, becoming
interested in the individual’s development as much as in the social relationships.
Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, George Eliot set up a sound
tradition of novel writing against which much of the renewal of the 20th-century
modernists would define itself. Able to capture and expose the social evils,
sensitive to the changes in the age, the Victorian writers managed to offer a
complete and accurate view of a period perceived as stable and conventional in
spite of its obvious dynamism.

The Twentieth Century

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the British history had been
marked by a clear effort to define a nation’s identity. To reach this goal and
impose itself in the European and world’s context, Britain sometimes chose to
remain isolated within its water boundaries. At some other moments, Britain
opened up towards the European continent, until, during Queen Victoria’s reign, it
managed to gain a position of unprecedented power in the world.
By surveying the various periods in the history of British civilisation, there is,
however, a recurrent pattern that one can identify in the succession of these
periods. The history of civilisation can be seen not necessarily as a succession of
historical or cultural periods, but rather as a series of assertions and denials, or
rather efforts to challenge what exists, following one another. A form of denial
succeeds to another form of denial and what one may have the chance to discover
is that, once it imposes itself, innovation becomes tradition to be replaced by a
different type of innovation. Every new cultural period denied and replaced the
certainties of the previous one, changing its own questions into newly constituted
certainties.
The special quality of the twentieth century resides in its essentially being a
century characterised by internationalism76. In spite of its privileged position as
one of the greatest world powers, if not the greatest, Britain would be forced to
learn to live as part of a world whose situations of crisis could be solved only if
countries accepted to function as perfectly synchronised systems.
The beginning of the twentieth century was characterised by a spirit of change
to be sensed everywhere in the world. The stability of the Victorian era was put to
severe test and the new value system started challenging the fairly solid Victorian
one. As a matter of fact, all the reform movements initiated in nineteenth began to
affect considerably the British society at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Britain at the Turn of the Century

When Victoria died in 1901, her son succeeded to the throne and ruled the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1901 to 1910 as King Edward
VII. He also took over his mother’s position as emperor of India. His reign is
known in the history of British civilisation as the Edwardian period.
Because of Victoria’s unusually long reign, Edward was Prince of Wales for
most of his life. He spent his time studying and taking part in social events. In his
capacity as Prince of Wales, he also travelled a lot to British dominions and
foreign countries, such as Russia or France, inaugurating thus the tradition of
goodwill visits by members of the British royal family.
Edward’s passion for sports, especially yachting and horse racing, increased
his popularity at home, both as Prince of Wales and as king. His reign is noted as
a period of peace and economic prosperity for Britain, all the more so as it was
followed by the years of conflict and outburst of violence in Europe and around
the world of the First World War.
As king of Britain, Edward tried to diminish the political tension that had
been mounting in Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century and it was on
his diplomatic effort that international amity increased in Europe, Britain’s
position being subsequently strengthened. On his death, the crown of Britain went
to his son, George, who ruled as George V (1910-1936).
George’s popularity with the British was as high as his father’s. It depended
to a large extent on his supporting the British armed forces during World War I.
Besides, under the tensioned political and military circumstances of this
conflagration, George found it appropriate to give up his German titles and
change his family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in 1917.
In the years preceding the outbreak of World War I, many of the political and
social movements started during the Victorian period continued or began to have
visible results. Their impact was higher, however, as their goal was no longer to
improve existing conditions, but rather to reorder the society altogether. Socialist
ideas began to gain ground not only among the industrial workers, but also among
middle-class intellectuals77.

76
Internationalism is to be taken as the belief that countries should work together and learn to
understand and accept each other’s traditions.
 Free school meals, pensions for the elderly or the National Insurance78
represented some of the measures taken by the government in the first years of the
twentieth century to improve the living conditions of the poor. They were made
possible by the introduction of the budget known as ‘the people’s budget’79, which
permitted the implementation of certain far-reaching social programmes.
Closely associated with the country’s social situation, several political
movements became more severe during this period, proving indispensable to the
reordering of a more just society. The trade union strikes at the beginning of the
twentieth century were the best evidence of the power of the labour movement,
which had started to organise itself and act as a unified force in the last decades of
the nineteenth century. The Labour Party, created to gain representation for the
workers, managed to win twenty-nine seats in Parliament in the 1906 elections.
Another issue that the British government had to address during this period,
although its origins were to be traced as far back as the Age of the
Enlightenment80, was that of women’s suffrage. This movement acquired impetus
at the turn of the century and was underlain by the women’s effort to get the right
to vote and to be represented. Known as the women’s emancipation, this
movement sometimes had a rather violent aspect in Britain. Yet it took until after
World War I that the women, who had had a significant contribution in wartime
and influenced in a favourable way the public opinion, managed to win their
rights. In 1918, Parliament enfranchised women householders, householders’
wives and women university graduates over thirty years of age, the voting age
limit being lowered to twenty-one only ten years later.
Britain’s government also had to cope with the rising tension in Ireland,
where the Irish Republicans militated for Ireland’s independence, while the
British unionists supported the union with Britain. This tension finally led to the
Irish Revolution in 1912. Gladstone’s effort to pass the home rule bill for Ireland
had ended in failure. The threat of World War I, however, made British
Parliament pass home rule for Ireland in 1914 to avoid civil war, its enactment
being suspended, however, until after the war.

World War I
Britain had been involved in more or less extended wars throughout its
history, but none had been as violent as World War I. Moreover, before the
twentieth century, the wars Britain played its part in had been regional at the
worst. The first conflagration of the twentieth century affected Britain to such an
extent that all its domestic problems were perforce pushed to the background of
the political stage.

77
One of the most important socialist movements was the one led by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. It
was known as the London Fabian Society and it also included among its members the novelist H.
G. Wells and the playwright G. B. Shaw. The latter’s plays brought on stage and attacked some of
the taboo ideas of the Victorians, such as class distinction or private property. The Fabians
considered that the conditions of the workers and of the poor should become the object of
scientific analysis and that legislation should be adopted to improve them.
78
It provided health-care and unemployment insurance to the families that lived below the poverty
line.
79
Introduced by the Welsh socialist politician David Lloyd George in 1909, the budget was
destined to fund social programmes for the poor.
80
British feminism may be said to originate in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights
of Woman written in 1792.
 The colonial expansionism at the end of the nineteenth century and the
struggle to take possession of new territories brought the European powers into a
conflict that proved impossible to solve diplomatically. To redress the balance of
power and to prevent future hostilities, the European nations formed alliances,
which would constitute later on the two opposing sides during World War I. To
be able to oppose Germany’s growing military threat, Britain entered into the
Triple Entente with France and Russia, while Germany established the Triple
Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy. In 1914, when a Serbian nationalist
assassinated the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, the European nations had
to take a stand and diplomatic alliances had to be honoured. The European powers
were thus pulled into a conflict that evolved into a total war.
The war seriously affected Britain and changed the British society. Faced with
the prospect of war, the two major political parties, at odds ever since the
seventeenth century, formed a coalition government, which also included
representatives of the Labour party. The trade unions urged that strikes should be
put an end to. The movement for women’s emancipation came to a stop.
The British economy was reorganised for wartime needs. The munitions
industry came under the government’s control. Agriculture had to produce more.
Women started working in industry to replace the over six million British men
who had become members of the armed forces.
For Britain, as for all the other countries involved in this conflict, World War
I proved to be extremely expensive. Weapons had become better and more
efficient. The new technologies, however, did nothing but make the war even
more sophisticated and destructive. More than three million British died in the
war and many returned to the British Isles with a certain degree of disability.
For the British government, the situation became even more complicated with
the claims for the independence of Ireland. Although promises of home rule for
Ireland had been made in 1914, the Irish took the opportunity of the war to
reassert their claims for total freedom. The Easter Rebellion of 1916 gave further
impetus to the Irish Revolution and in 1918 the Irish representatives to Parliament
declared an independent Irish Free State with its own Parliament81. As the British
government would not recognise it, the British security forces started to be
attacked by armed groups organised into the Irish Republican Army (IRA). By the
Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, the Irish Free State, consisting of the whole of
Ireland, except Northern Ireland, became an independent nation, but it remained
part of the British Empire.
By the Treaty of Versailles concluded between the Allies and Germany in
1919 and which officially ended, Germany was forced to pay for war damage and
it lost possession of large colonial territories. Britain got some of the German
colonies in Africa and received a small part of the financial reparations Germany
had to pay.
At home, Lloyd George’s coalition government, re-elected in 1918, had to
cope with the serious problems caused by the large number of soldiers coming
back to the British Isles. Higher prices and lower wages brought about a series of
strikes and generated unemployment, making the government unable to provide
unemployment insurance. The economic situation worsened during the following
decade and in spite of the social welfare programme proposed by the Labour and
Liberal government of 1929, Britain was severely affected by the worldwide
81
It was called Dáil Éireann, meaning ‘Assembly for Ireland’ in Gaelic.
economic crisis. Radical measures had to be taken to raise income taxes and
reduce unemployment. Britain abandoned free trade, placing duties on imports. It
nationalised utilities, including coal. Most importantly, however, although its
economy started to recover by 1935, Britain had to modernise all its sectors to be
able to face the fierce competition from the United Sates mainly, but also from
Germany, whose economy had recovered due to a sustained rearmament
programme.
Yet, no matter how seriously affected it was by the Great Depression, Britain
still was one of the world’s greatest powers, having a leading role in the newly
established League of Nations82, whose aim, after the experience of World War I,
was to try and solve international conflicts peacefully. The more serious impact
the war had on the British was rather of a moral nature. World War I had brought
about a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity. The British, no longer willing to
fight, did not see why they should hold on to the colonies of the vast British
Empire, very expensive to rule anyhow. Besides, many of these colonies no
longer wanted to be ruled by Britain. Under the circumstances, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand and South Africa became independent countries. They remained,
however, part of the British Commonwealth of Nations set up in 1931. In 1922,
Egypt was granted independence too, although Britain retained control of the Suez
Canal. A nationalist movement, under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, started in
India, making it difficult for Britain to control this colony.

World War II
In the latter half of the thirties, Germany under the rule of the Nazi Party,
through Adolf Hitler’s actions, started to represent again a threat to the peace of
the world. German expansionism was not radically counteracted, the European
countries, especially Britain, trying to make concessions to Germany in an effort
to maintain peace in Europe.
Despite Germany’s act of aggression against Austria and Czechoslovakia,
Britain did not take a stand until Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.
When Britain and France declared war on Germany, World War II began and
Britain had an important challenge to face, as for the next two years, it was the
only country to fight the Germans in Europe.
By 1941, the war had become international and two alliances were created.
The Axis powers included Germany, Italy, and Japan, while Britain, the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States were known as the
Allied Powers.
The British were determined to fight the Germans and win the war, inspired
by the artful speeches of one of the nation’s greatest statesmen, Winston
Churchill, Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945. By the
concerted actions of the allied forces, Germany’s expansion was put an end to and
Germany was eventually defeated in 1945.
World War II was far more violent and extended than World I. It took its toll
on every nation. Practically all countries of the world finally got involved in the
conflict. More than fifty million people were killed. The most important problem,
however, that the humanity was confronted with in this war was of a moral nature.
In 1945, the war ended when the Allies took control of Germany and Hitler killed
82
The League of Nations was established in 1920 as international alliance meant to preserve
peace. It existed until 1946, when it evolved into the United Nations (UN).
himself, but Japan was defeated only when the atomic bombs were dropped on the
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States Army Air Forces.
According to U.S. estimates, out of the three hundred and fifty thousand people of
Hiroshima, sixty to seventy thousand people were killed or missing. Sixty-eight
percent of Hiroshima's buildings were destroyed and more than twenty percent
were damaged. Three days after the attack on Hiroshima, another atomic bomb
was dropped on Nagasaki, killing more than forty thousand people. The victory
was not necessarily one gained by army commanders, but one gained as a result of
making a disastrous experiment upon a civilian population. People died of flash
burns, but radiation had considerably more and far-reaching effects.
Nothing, however, could equal the atrocity, yet cynical sophistication, of the
Holocaust, which represents, as a matter of fact, the greatest problem of morality
associated with World War II. It was the work of the Nazis, but, unfortunately, all
nations should take responsibility for the worst genocide in the world’s history.
The Holocaust meant the almost complete destruction of the Jews in Europe by
the Nazis, around six million people being exterminated in the German
concentration camps.

In the Aftermath of World War II

Britain was severely affected by the war. Even if it was victorious, the war
exhausted more than a quarter of Britain’s wealth. Consequently, the period after
the war confronted Britain with serious problems of food, fuel and housing
shortage, unemployment and monetary crisis. It was then not much of a surprise
that the Conservative Winston Churchill, highly efficient in wartime, gave way to
the Labour Party, which won the 1945 elections.
The Labour government started a nationalisation programme, getting
ownership of the Bank of England, of the coal, gas and electricity industries.
Besides, the government took the iron and steel industries, which had been
profitable private businesses. Yet, the fierce competition on the international
market also required an ample programme of modernisation of these industries.
A series of measures were also taken to improve the living conditions of the
British. Welfare programmes were established. The 1946 National Insurance Act
provided insurance for maternity, unemployment, old age, disability and death. In
1948, the National Health Service was set up, offering free medical care to the
British. The Marshall Plan83 contributed to a large extent to the reconstruction of
the United Kingdom after the war. In a few years, Britain managed to re-establish
its export industries.
The Marshall Plan was clear evidence of the fact that a major outcome of
World War II was the new position of the United States as a world power. The
most important effect of World War II, however, was to be seen in the political
field. This conflict of unprecedented dimensions and violence forced the world’s
nations to reconsider their position to one another and to take immediate measures
to stop similar future conflagrations.
The League of Nations, established in 1920, had been considered a solution to
the peace of the world. Yet, it proved too weak to prevent the outbreak of World
War II, which meant that it was imperative that such organisations should be

83
The European Recovery Programme, known as the Marshall Plan after the name of the US
Secretary of State George Catlett Marshall, was a programme designed by the United States in
1947 to help European countries rebuild their economies after the war through low-cost loans.
strengthened if they were expected to play an active and effective role in the
world’s twentieth-century history. Consequently, the United Nations Organisation
was set up in 1945. The aim of this international organisation based in New York
was to promote peace around the world and solve international problems. As a
permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Britain continued to
play an important part in international affairs. Moreover, the Labour government
supported Britain’s military presence in the British colonies and in Europe, in an
effort to maintain its position and role as a world power. The United Kingdom had
an equally significant part as one of the founding members of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation – NATO established in 1949 as a measure against the Soviet
threat after World War II.

Disintegration of the British Empire

Before World War II, in the aftermath of World War I, Britain had
reconsidered its relationships with many of its colonies and in 1931 it created the
Commonwealth of Nations. Several colonies were granted the status of dominion,
which also implied, apart from the right to self-government, a preferential
treatment on the British market for the goods coming from these dominions. By
Britain’s adopting this course of action, British rule practically ended in Canada,
Australia and New Zealand.
A sustained movement for independence eventually made Britain withdraw
from India too, although the loss of Britain’s most valued colony represented the
beginning of the disintegration of the British Empire. India became independent in
1947, when it divided into two countries, India and Pakistan.
In 1922, Egypt had been granted independence, but the British had preserved
the Suez Canal, which helped Britain maintain its role as a world trader. In 1956,
the Egyptians seized the canal and, despite its efforts and the military assistance of
France and Israeli, Britain was forced to leave the canal area, losing thus its
influence in the region. In the 1960s, many of Britain’s possessions in Africa
readjusted their relations to Britain. They either changed into republics, adopting,
however, the British forms of government and law, or they became self-governing
states and joined the Commonwealth.
Yet, although it lost its empire, Britain continued to exercise considerable,
even if indirect, influence in the areas that had once been part of the British
Empire, through institutions and, more importantly, education. The
Commonwealth also provided the framework for Britain’s having an important
contribution in international affairs and acting as a mediator in situations of
conflict in zones that had previously been under British control, such as the
Middle East and Africa.

Developments in the 20th-century Arts and Thinking

The twentieth century was, from its very beginning, confronted with a state of
crisis in all fields of life, social, political or artistic. More than any of the centuries
preceding it, the twentieth was essentially an international one, characterised by a
new spirit, under the form of a reaction against the established system of values
and break with tradition. The key concept, shared by the whole Western world
was that of ‘the modern’. It would be then difficult to speak about distinct
achievements restricted to Britain alone. As the two world wars demonstrated it,
Britain could no longer play its role on the international stage independently, but
as an integral part of a system whose functioning depended on the individual
countries’ ability to interrelate, while acknowledging one another’s identity.
Britain was just one of the components of the Western world and the rapid
economic, social, political and cultural changes occurring in this world proved
unlikely to leave Britain unaffected.
An unprecedented development of science and technology led to a complete
questioning of the pre-established values of the previous centuries and forced the
human mind to adapt itself to a seemingly dismembering system and try to cast
order upon it. New values struggled to emerge and become operational throughout
the twentieth century. The concept of ‘the modern’ is probably the most difficult
to define in the context of this century, but what it certain is that modernisation
occurred almost simultaneously in all fields and in all countries of Western
Europe.
In 1899, the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud wrote The Interpretation of
Dreams, in which he formulated the fundamental concepts to underlie the
psychoanalytic method, based on dream analysis and free association. His work
was to exercise one of the most notable influences on the twentieth-century
modernist literature, in that a new interest in the mind and the mechanisms
underlying the mental processes started to be taken. Most significant
developments in narrative technique that characterised the twentieth-century
literary productions came to be associated with Freud’s theories.
In 1900, the German physicist Max Planck developed his quantum theory,
postulating that energy is radiated in small, discrete units, called quanta. In 1905,
the German American physicist Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity,
which would become the basis of the later demonstration of the unity of matter
and energy, of space and time and of the forces of gravity and acceleration. Not
only did both theories usher physics into the modern era, but they also
substantially influenced the new artistic perspective, making creators reconsider
the relationships between art and reality.
Based on this development of science and technology, arts began to claim
their right to represent in a new way, even if this meant deforming them, the data
of sense perception and experience. Modern artists started from the assumption
that “whether we call it life or spirit, truth or reality, this, the essential thing, has
moved off, or on, and refuses to be contained any longer in such ill-fitting
vestments as we provide.”84 Since 1908, the year of Braque Exhibition, Georges
Braque85, Pablo Picasso86, Constantin Brâncuşi87 have forced audiences to rethink
and reorganise their perception of life or reality.
The same tencdencies of refashioning older art were also present in music and
dance. Igor Stravinsky’s88 music broke the conventions of harmony and was
characterised by asymmetrical rhythms. In 1908, he started composing music for
84
Virginia Woolf, ‘Modern Fiction,’ The Idea of Literature. The Foundations of Criticism
(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979) 198.
85
(1882-1963), French painter, who, with Pablo Picasso, originated cubism and the cubist style,
one of the main tendencies in twentieth-century art.
86
(1881-1973), Spanish painter. Considered to be the most important artist of the twentieth
century, Pablo Picasso originated cubism, invented collage as an artistic technique and developed
assemblage (constructions of various materials) in sculpture.
87
(1876-1957), Romanian sculptor. His work considerably influenced the modern concepts of
form in sculpture, painting and industrial design.
88
(1882-1971), Russian American composer, one of the influential figures of the 20 th-century
music.
Sergey Diaghilev’s89 Ballets Russes, music of surprising dissonance becoming a
perfect match for an unconventional choreography.
Gaudí’s90 highly personal style, a mixture of neo-Gothic and art nouveau, also
including surrealist and cubist elements, is at its best in the lofty cubist towers of
the Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Família (the Church of the Holy Family) in
Barcelona. The forms, colours and textures of the building still impress visitors,
forcing them to reorganise their knowledge of what the art of architecture is or is
expected to be.
If in the period preceding World War I and between the two world wars,
Europe had proved to be the incontestable centre of modern art, after World War
II, the centre tended to move to the United States. The American artists’ efforts
were marked by their intention to move away from European modernism. Various
movements such as abstract expressionism91, minimalism92 or pop art93 were
associated with the American artists’ endeavour to identify a form of expression
of their own.
Modern architecture originated in the United States and Europe, from where it
spread to the rest of the world. Its distinctive character depended much on
developments in iron and concrete as building materials. Modern architects
considered it necessary to invent new styles and technologies more appropriate to
express the spirit of a new age. A wide variety of buildings, sometimes dissimilar
in appearance were put up. If they did not share a style, they shared, however, a
sense of the modern understood as an attempt to break with the conventions -
materials, technologies or styles, of earlier architecture. Britain provides two of
the earliest, yet well known examples of modern architecture, which is not
surprising if one looks at Britain as the cradle and centre of the Industrial
Revolution. The first structure entirely built of cast iron was the bridge94 over the
Severn at Ironbridge, a town in England considered to be an early centre of the
Industrial Revolution. The iron and glass Crystal Palace in London, designed to
house the Great Exhibition of 1851 and bear witness to Britain’s power,
undoubtedly anticipated the principles and technology of the twentieth-century
architecture.
From the art nouveau style, architecture evolved towards an international
style95 characterised by a new emphasis on volume, regularity and proportions, on
technical perfection given by the use of materials such as steel and glass.

89
(1872-1929), Russian ballet impresario. His major contribution to the development of 20th-
century art was that he attempted to revive ballet as a serious art form.
90
Antoni Gaudí y Cornet, (1852-1926), Spanish architect, one of the most representative architects
of the modern art of architecture.
91
Among its representatives were Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko.
92
Initiated by Frank Stella, minimalism avoided reference to everyday objects and used repetition
as a means of composing the picture.
93
Represented by Andy Warhol, pop art tried to establish a strong connection between high art and
popular culture.
94
It was designed by the English architect Thomas Pritchard in 1779.
95
In 1932, International Style: Architecture Since 1922, written by the American historian of
architecture Henry-Russell Hitchcock and the architect Philip Johnson presented what could be
seen as the characteristics of modern architecture, becoming thus one of the influential writings in
the field.
 Britain in the Latter Half of the Twentieth Century
In 1951, the Conservative Party came back to the fore of the British political
stage, by winning the majority in Parliament. In 1952, Elizabeth II ascended the
throne of Britain, associating her name with a period of renewed prosperity for the
nation. The British economy grew stronger through sustained investments in the
automobile and chemical industries. Besides, the steel and iron industries, highly
profitable before and during World War II, returned to private ownership. After
several decades of exhaustion and subsequent slow recovery during and after the
war, a consolidated economy contributed to the growth of what was called “the
affluent society.” The British regained their confidence in the potential of the
British nation to play a part in the world’s context. The 1950s represented a
climax of Britain’s cultural optimism translated in a definite influence Britain
exercised in fashion, style, music or sports over the other countries of the Western
world.
The enthusiasm of the 1950s dampened in the 1960s and 1970s mainly
because of the fierce competition from other European countries, especially
Germany and France, which had emerged as industrial and trading powers after
the war. France, under De Gaulle’s leadership, even tried to prevent Britain from
joining the European Economic Community96, mainly on account of its close
relationships with the United States. Because of an economic slowdown, British
currency devalued. Important British industries, such as shipbuilding, textiles,
coal or steel, started to fall into a decline, bringing about tense relationships
between workers and employers and generating strikes.
The Labour Party won the 1974 elections by promising to meet the demands
of the trade unions. Yet the wages and the prices could not be kept under control
and in 1979, the Conservatives took office, under Britain’s first female Prime
Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher’s policy was based on her firm belief that
the state should not interfere in business, reason for which many of the industries
owned by the state were privatised. Besides, she was determined not to give in to
the trade unions and thus substantially reduced their power by a set of laws. The
theory at the basis of Thatcher’s policy was called monetarism and it involved
control of the money supply to reduce inflation, encouragement of investments by
lowering tax rates and expansion of businesses by reducing government
intervention in industry.
Profiting by the spur of the Falkland War and Britain’s victory in the war,
after the electoral victory of 1983, the Conservative government continued their
economic policies, still unwilling to accept any compromise as far as the social
programmes were concerned. By the mid-1980s, Thatcher’s monetarist policy
started having visible effects, in that inflation was reduced, interest rates had been
brought down and British industries had become competitive. Yet, while the
Conservatives won the support of the upper classes, their policy was less favoured
by the lower middle classes, especially because Margaret Thatcher encouraged
people to rely on themselves, rather than on the welfare state. In other words,
instead of perfecting social programmes to improve conditions for the poor, she
made people pay for their own health care, education and pensions.

96
The EEC was established in 1957 and then changed into the European Community in 1967.
Britain began negotiations to join the EEC in 1961, but its application was unsuccessful. After
another attempt in 1967, Britain finally became a member of the EC on 1 January 1973.
 Some people were critical of Thatcherism, i.e. the political and economic
policies of Margaret Thatcher, while she was Britain’s Prime Minister (1979-
1990). Although these policies helped develop British economy, by laying due
emphasis on private enterprise and reducing inflation, they also created new social
divisions, by increasing the gap between the rich and the poor. Besides, critics of
Thatcherism deplored the fact that these policies had led to the loss of Britain’s
traditional industries, many workers remaining unemployed. They also feared that
they had led to a sort of dehumanisation, as people were more interested in
making money than in one another.
Because of her attitude to the European Union, Margaret Thatcher was forced
to resign in 1990 by members of her own party, after having won three general
elections. The Conservative John Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher as Britain’s
Prime Minister. Unfortunately, the Conservative Party Major inherited was
divided mainly over issues relating to European Union. In 1992, the Maastricht
Treaty amended the Treaty of Rome through which the European Economic
Community had been established. Under the Maastricht Treaty, the major
European powers agreed on a greater European integration, by creating a single
economic union. Britain’s Conservative government opted out of the Social
Chapter97, considering it appropriate that the social policy should exclusively fall
under the responsibility of individual member states. Therefore, Britain did not
sign the document in 1992, although every other European country agreed to it.
Moreover, the Maastricht Treaty also proposed to create euro98 as the single
unified currency of the European Union as part of the European Monetary Union.
As Parliament and the British people disagreed about whether Britain should join
in a single monetary policy, the Conservative government decided that they
should not commit Britain to joining.
In 1997, the Labour Party, under the leadership of Tony Blair, won the
elections. In favour of the Social Chapter, they signed the document, but decided
that Britain would not join the Economic and Monetary Union before 2002. The
joining was to be considered a possibility only if it had clear economic benefits
for Britain and if the British, for whom the idea of the economic union was highly
unpopular, agreed to it in a referendum.
The Labour Party had lost the elections since 1979, but the defeat of 1992
forced its members to seriously consider the party’s reorganisation. Tony Blair
became the leader of the Labour Party in 1994 and effected the change that had
imposed itself as indispensable. His great contribution was that he created a new
image for his party, which was no longer to be seen under the control of the trade
unions. This implied that individuals could get more private wealth and they could
have a more personal choice about their education or health care.
Despite the fact that Britain had reached a very good economic and social
situation under the Conservative government, the Labour defeated the

97
The Social Chapter was that section of the Maastricht Treaty dealing with people’s rights under
the European laws. The right of employees to be paid fairly and to work in safe conditions, the
right of children and old people to be treated fairly, or the right of men and women to have equal
opportunities were stipulated in this document.
98
Euro became the official currency of the European Union on 1 January 1999, replacing the ecu
European currency unit). Euros were issued as coins and paper money from 1 January 2002. The
Euro was introduced in the eleven countries that had supported the monetary union (Belgium,
Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, and
Spain).
Conservatives in 1997 and Tony Blair, the leader of the party, took office and
became Britain’s youngest Prime Minister since the nineteenth century. Tony
Blair’s centrist policies contributed to the Labour Party winning the national
elections of 2001.