1.
Dover
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Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. The town is the centre of the Dover District and home of the Dover Calais ferry through the Port of Dover. The surrounding chalk cliffs are known as the White Cliffs of Dover and its strategic position has been evident throughout its history, archaeological finds have revealed that the area has always been a focus for peoples entering and leaving Britain. The name of the town derives from the name of the river flows through it. There was a barracks in Dover, which was closed in 2007. Although many of the ferry services have declined, services related to the Port of Dover provide a great deal of the town’s employment. Local residents had clubbed together to propose buying it for the community, first recorded in its Latinised form of Portus Dubris, the name derives from the Brythonic word for waters. The same element is present in the towns French and Modern Welsh forms, subsequent name forms included Doverre, The current name was in use at least by the time of Shakespeares King Lear, in which the town and its cliffs play a prominent role. The sight of the cliffs when approaching Dover may have given the island of Britain its ancient name of Albion. Dover’s history, because of its proximity to France, has always been of strategic importance to Britain. Archaeological finds have shown there were Stone Age people in the area. Some Iron Age finds exist also, but the coming of the Romans made Dover part of their communications network, like Lemanis and Rutupiae Dover was connected by road to Canterbury and Watling Street, and it became Portus Dubris, a fortified port. Forts were built above the port, lighthouses were constructed to guide passing ships, Dover figured largely in the Domesday Book as an important borough. It also served as a bastion against various attackers, notably the French during the Napoleonic Wars and it was one of the Cinque Ports during medieval times. Dover is near the extreme south-east corner of Britain between Deal and Folkestone and this led to the silting up of the river mouth by the action of longshore drift, the town was then forced into making artificial breakwaters to keep the port in being. These breakwaters have been extended and adapted so that the port lies almost entirely on reclaimed land. The higher land on either side of the valley – the Western Heights, the town has gradually extended up the river valley, encompassing several villages in doing so. Little growth is possible along the coast, since the cliffs are on the sea’s edge, the railway, being tunnelled and embanked, skirts the foot of the cliffs
2.
Kent
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Kent /ˈkɛnt/ is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south west, the county also shares borders with Essex via the Dartford Crossing and the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. France can be clearly in fine weather from Folkestone and the White Cliffs of Dover. Hills in the form of the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge span the length of the county, because of its relative abundance of fruit-growing and hop gardens, Kent is known as The Garden of England. The title was defended in 2006 when a survey of counties by the UKTV Style Gardens channel put Kent in fifth place, behind North Yorkshire, Devon. Haulage, logistics, and tourism are industries, major industries in north-west Kent include aggregate building materials, printing. Coal mining has played its part in Kents industrial heritage. Large parts of Kent are within the London commuter belt and its transport connections to the capital. Twenty-eight per cent of the county forms part of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the North Downs and The High Weald, the area has been occupied since the Palaeolithic era, as attested by finds from the quarries at Swanscombe. The Medway megaliths were built during the Neolithic era, There is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman era occupation, as indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley. The modern name of Kent is derived from the Brythonic word Cantus meaning rim or border and this describes the eastern part of the current county area as a border land or coastal district. Julius Caesar had described the area as Cantium, or home of the Cantiaci in 51 BC, the extreme west of the modern county was by the time of Roman Britain occupied by Iron Age tribes, known as the Regnenses. East Kent became a kingdom of the Jutes during the 5th century and was known as Cantia from about 730, the early medieval inhabitants of the county were known as the Cantwara, or Kent people. These people regarded the city of Canterbury as their capital, in 597, Pope Gregory I appointed the religious missionary as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In the previous year, Augustine successfully converted the pagan King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity, the Diocese of Canterbury became Britains first Episcopal See with first cathedral and has since remained Englands centre of Christianity. The second designated English cathedral was in Kent at Rochester Cathedral, in the 11th century, the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta, meaning undefeated. This naming followed the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy, the Kent peoples continued resistance against the Normans led to Kents designation as a semi-autonomous county palatine in 1067. Under the nominal rule of Williams half-brother Odo of Bayeux, the county was granted powers to those granted in the areas bordering Wales
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Norman architecture
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The term Norman architecture is used to categorise styles of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion or influence in the 11th and 12th centuries. In particular the term is used for English Romanesque architecture. Ancient Romes invention of the arch is the basis of all Norman architecture, the more inclusive term romanesque was used of the Romance languages in English by 1715, and was applied to architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries from 1819. The Norman arch is a point of Norman architecture. Grand archways are designed to evoke feelings of awe and are commonly seen as the entrance to large religious buildings such as cathedrals. Viking invaders arrived at the mouth of the river Seine in 911, at a time when Franks were fighting on horseback and Frankish lords were building castles. Over the next century the population of the territory ceded to the Vikings, now called Normans, adopted these customs as well as Christianity and the langue doïl. Norman Barons built timber castles on earthen mounds, beginning the development of motte-and-bailey castles, by 950 they were building stone keeps. The Normans were among the most travelled peoples of Europe, exposed to a variety of cultural influences including the Near East, some of which became incorporated in their art. In England, Norman nobles and bishops had influence before the Norman Conquest of 1066, edward the Confessor was brought up in Normandy, and in 1042 brought masons to work on Westminster Abbey, the first Romanesque building in England. In 1051 he brought in Norman knights who built castles as a defence against the Welsh. The Norman arch is the round arch, Norman mouldings are carved or incised with geometric ornament, such as chevron patterns, frequently termed zig-zag mouldings, around arches. The cruciform churches often had deep chancels and a crossing tower which has remained a feature of English ecclesiastical architecture. Hundreds of parish churches were built and the great English cathedrals were founded from 1083, after a fire damaged Canterbury Cathedral in 1174 Norman masons introduced the new Gothic architecture. Around 1191 Wells Cathedral and Lincoln Cathedral brought in the English Gothic style, nicholas Church, Pyrford, Surrey Southwell Minster St. Mary the Virgin, Iffley, Oxfordshire St. Swithuns in Nately Scures, Hampshire, an example of a Norman single-cell apsidal church. His successor Máel Coluim III overthrew him with English and Norman assistance, the Benedictine order founded a monastery at Dunfermline. Her sixth and youngest son who became King David built St. Margarets Chapel at the start of the 12th century, Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline grid reference NT089872 St Andrew Cathedral grid reference NO516166 St. With rare examples of late 12th century Norman Transitional architecture[3 The Normans first landed in Ireland in 1169, within five years earthwork castles were springing up, and in a further five, work was beginning on some of the earliest of the great stone castles
5.
Castle
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A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. Usage of the term has varied over time and has applied to structures as diverse as hill forts. Over the approximately 900 years that castles were built, they took on a great many forms with different features, although some, such as curtain walls. A European innovation, castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. Although their military origins are often emphasised in castle studies, the structures served as centres of administration. Many castles were built from earth and timber, but had their defences replaced later by stone. Early castles often exploited natural defences, lacking features such as towers and arrowslits, in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, a scientific approach to castle defence emerged. This led to the proliferation of towers, with an emphasis on flanking fire, many new castles were polygonal or relied on concentric defence – several stages of defence within each other that could all function at the same time to maximise the castles firepower. These changes in defence have been attributed to a mixture of castle technology from the Crusades, such as concentric fortification, not all the elements of castle architecture were military in nature, so that devices such as moats evolved from their original purpose of defence into symbols of power. Some grand castles had long winding approaches intended to impress and dominate their landscape, while castles continued to be built well into the 16th century, new techniques to deal with improved cannon fire made them uncomfortable and undesirable places to live. As a result, true castles went into decline and were replaced by artillery forts with no role in civil administration, and country houses that were indefensible. From the 18th century onwards, there was a renewed interest in castles with the construction of castles, part of a romantic revival of Gothic architecture. The word castle is derived from the Latin word castellum, which is a diminutive of the word castrum, meaning fortified place. The Old English castel, Old French castel or chastel, French château, Spanish castillo, Italian castello, the word castle was introduced into English shortly before the Norman Conquest to denote this type of building, which was then new to England. In its simplest terms, the definition of a castle accepted amongst academics is a fortified residence. Feudalism was the link between a lord and his vassal where, in return for service and the expectation of loyalty. Castles served a range of purposes, the most important of which were military, administrative, as well as defensive structures, castles were also offensive tools which could be used as a base of operations in enemy territory
6.
English Heritage
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English Heritage is a registered charity that manages the National Heritage Collection. This comprises over 400 of Englands historic buildings, monuments and sites spanning more than 5,000 years of history, within its portfolio are Stonehenge, Dover Castle, Tintagel Castle and the best preserved parts of Hadrians Wall. English Heritage also manages the London Blue Plaques scheme, which links influential historical figures to particular buildings and it was created to combine the roles of existing bodies that had emerged from a long period of state involvement in heritage protection. The British government gave the new charity an £80 million grant to establish it as an independent trust. Over the centuries, what is now called Heritage has been the responsibility of a series of state departments. There was the Kings Works after the Norman Conquest, the Office of Works, the Office of Woods, Forests, Land Revenues and Works, and the Ministry of Works. Responsibility subsequently transferred to the Ministry of Public Building and Works then to the Department of the Environment and now the Department for Culture, Media, the states legal responsibility for the historic environment goes back to the Ancient Monuments Protection Act 1882. Central government subsequently developed several systems of protection for different types of assets, introducing listing for buildings after WW2. The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission was formed under the terms of the National Heritage Act 1983 on 1 April 1984, soon after, the commission gained the operating name of English Heritage by its first Chairman, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu. A national register of parks and gardens, was set up in 1984. Registration is a consideration in the planning process. In 2010–2011 it recorded 4.3 million unique online user sessions, in 2012 the section responsible for archive collections was renamed the English Heritage Archive. As a result of the National Heritage Act 2002, English Heritage acquired administrative responsibility for historic wrecks, the administration of the listed building system was transferred from DCMS to English Heritage in 2006. It was retained on grounds of performing a function which should remain independent from Government. However the department also suffered from budget cuts during the recession of the 2010s resulting in a deficit of £100 million. In June 2013 the British Government announced plans to provide an £80 million grant to enable English Heritage to become a self-financing charity, the national portfolio of historic properties remain in public ownership, but the new English Heritage will be licensed to manage them. The change occurred on 1 April 2015 with the planning and heritage protection functions remaining an independent, non-departmental public body. The new trust has a licence to operate the properties until 2023, English Heritage is the guardian of over 400 sites and monuments, the most famous of which include Stonehenge, Iron Bridge and Dover Castle
7.
Henry II of England
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Henry was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mothers efforts to claim the throne of England, then occupied by Stephen of Blois and he inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had recently been annulled. Stephen agreed to a treaty after Henrys military expedition to England in 1153. Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his royal grandfather, Henrys desire to reform the relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Beckets murder in 1170, Henry soon came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a cold war over several decades. By 1172, he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the half of Ireland and the western half of France. Henry and Eleanor had eight children, as they grew up, tensions over the future inheritance of the empire began to emerge, encouraged by Louis and his son King Philip II. In 1173 Henrys heir apparent, Young Henry, rebelled in protest, he was joined by his brothers Richard and Geoffrey and by their mother, France, Scotland, Flanders, and Boulogne allied themselves with the rebels. The Great Revolt was only defeated by Henrys vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them new men appointed for their loyalty, Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183, resulting in Young Henrys death. The Norman invasion of Ireland provided lands for his youngest son John, Philip successfully played on Richards fears that Henry would make John king, and a final rebellion broke out in 1189. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from an ulcer, Henry retreated to Chinon in Anjou. Henrys empire quickly collapsed during the reign of his youngest son John, many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule, however, had long-term consequences. Historical interpretations of Henrys reign have changed considerably over time, in the 18th century, scholars argued that Henry was a driving force in the creation of a genuinely English monarchy and, ultimately, a unified Britain. Late-20th-century historians have combined British and French historical accounts of Henry, Henry was born in France at Le Mans on 5 March 1133 as the eldest child of the Empress Matilda and her second husband, Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou. In theory, the county answered to the French king, but royal power over Anjou weakened during the 11th century, Henrys mother, firstly married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, was the eldest daughter of Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy. She was born into a ruling class of Normans, who traditionally owned extensive estates in both England and Normandy. Geoffrey took advantage of the confusion to attack the Duchy of Normandy but played no role in the English conflict, leaving this to Matilda and her half-brother. The war, termed the Anarchy by Victorian historians, dragged on, Henry probably spent some of his earliest years in his mothers household, and accompanied Matilda to Normandy in the late 1130s
8.
First Barons' War
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King John in June 1215 was forced to put his seal to The Articles of the Barons by a group of powerful barons who could no longer stand Johns failed leadership and despotic rule. The kings Great Seal was attached to it on 15 June 1215, in return, the barons renewed their oaths of fealty to King John on 19 July 1215. A formal document to record the agreement was created by the chancery on 15 July. The law of the land is one of the great watchwords of Magna Carta, the Magna Carta of 1215 contained clauses which in theory noticeably reduced the power of the king, such as clause 61, the security clause. After a few months of half-hearted attempts to negotiate in the summer of 1215, the war began over the Magna Carta but quickly turned into a dynastic war for the throne of England. The rebel barons, faced with a king, turned to Louis, son and heir apparent of King Philip II of France. The Norman invasion had occurred only 149 years before, and the relationship between England and France was not so simply adversarial as it later became. The contemporary document called the annals of Waverley sees no contradiction in stating that Louis was invited to invade in order to prevent the realm being pillaged by aliens, at first, in November 1215, Louis simply sent the barons a contingent of knights to protect London. However, even at that stage he also agreed to an invasion, despite discouragement from his father. This came in May 1216, when watchmen on the coast of Thanet detected sails on the horizon, and on the next day, John decided to escape to the Saxon capital of Winchester, and so Louis had little resistance on his march to London. He entered London, also with little resistance, and was received by the rebel barons and citizens of London. Many nobles gathered to give homage to him, including Alexander II of Scotland, many of Johns supporters, sensing a tide of change, moved to support the barons. Gerald of Wales remarked, The madness of slavery is over, on 14 June Louis captured Winchester and soon conquered over half of the English kingdom. In the meantime, the King of France taunted his son for trying to conquer England without first seizing its key, Dover. The royal castles at Canterbury and Rochester, their towns, and indeed, most of Kent had already fallen to Louis and its constable, Hubert de Burgh, had a well-supplied garrison of men. The first siege began on 19 July, with Louis taking the ground to the north of the castle. His men successfully undermined the barbican and attempted to topple the castle gate, in the meantime Louiss occupation of Kent was being undermined by a guerrilla force of Wealden archers raised and led by William of Cassingham. After three months spent besieging the castle, and with a part of his forces diverted by the siege, Louis called a truce on 14 October
9.
Windsor Castle
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Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is notable for its association with the English and later British royal family. The original castle was built in the 11th century after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror, since the time of Henry I, it has been used by the reigning monarch and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe. Inside the castle walls is the 15th-century St Georges Chapel, considered by the historian John Martin Robinson to be one of the achievements of English Perpendicular Gothic design. Gradually replaced with stone fortifications, the castle withstood a siege during the First Barons War at the start of the 13th century. Edwards core design lasted through the Tudor period, during which Henry VIII and Elizabeth I made increasing use of the castle as a royal court and centre for diplomatic entertainment. Windsor Castle survived the period of the English Civil War, when it was used as a military headquarters for Parliamentary forces. At the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II rebuilt much of Windsor Castle with the help of the architect Hugh May, Queen Victoria made a few minor changes to the castle, which became the centre for royal entertainment for much of her reign. Windsor Castle was used as a refuge for the family during the Luftwaffe bombing campaigns of the Second World War. It is a popular tourist attraction, a venue for hosting state visits, today, more than 500 people live and work in Windsor Castle, making it the largest inhabited castle in the world. Windsor Castle occupies 13 acres, and combines the features of a fortification, a palace, the present-day castle was created during a sequence of phased building projects, culminating in the reconstruction work after a fire in 1992. It is in essence a Georgian and Victorian design based on a medieval structure, since the 14th century, architecture at the castle has attempted to produce a contemporary reinterpretation of older fashions and traditions, repeatedly imitating outmoded or even antiquated styles. Although there has some criticism, the castles architecture and history lends it a place amongst the greatest European palaces. At the heart of Windsor Castle is the Middle Ward, a formed around the motte or artificial hill in the centre of the ward. The motte is 50 feet high and is made from chalk originally excavated from the surrounding ditch, the Round Tower is in reality far from cylindrical, due to the shape and structure of the motte beneath it. The western entrance to the Middle Ward is now open, the eastern exit from the ward is guarded by the Norman Gatehouse. Wyatville redesigned the exterior of the gatehouse, and the interior was later converted in the 19th century for residential use. The Upper Ward of Windsor Castle comprises a number of major buildings enclosed by the bailey wall
10.
Hertford Castle
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Hertford Castle was a Norman castle situated by the River Lea in Hertford, the county town of Hertfordshire, England. Only the gatehouse survives, and is a Grade I listed building, Hertford Castle was built on a site first fortified by Edward the Elder around 911. By the time of the Norman Invasion in 1066, a motte, William the Conqueror granted the castle to Peter de Valoignes, the High Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire. Henry II took a great interest in the castle and its potential and this included the building of the flint walls, drawbridges and gatehouses. The castle was strengthened during the reign of Richard I by his regent. By this time the castle was governed by the Crown after Robert de Valoignes had died in 1184 leaving no male heirs, however it had been claimed by Robert Fitzwalter, Robert de Valoigness son-in-law. He seized the castle and installed his own tenants and garrison, although he was subsequently evicted by King John, he was eventually appointed governor of the castle. His opposition to the Crown continued and in 1211 he fled to France, following the death of Angelo Salvo in 1216, a French invasion besieged the castle for a month until the governor, Walter de Godarvil, surrendered. However the country then supported Henry III and by 1217 the French had left, following this the castles military role became secondary to its use as a royal residence and in 1299 Edward I gave it to his second wife Margaret. During the reign of Edward II the castle saw its first political prisoners, some of the Knights Templar, Edwards wife Isabella and their son, Edward III both spent much time in the castle. During the Hundred Years War the castle was used to detain prisoners of royal and these included King David II of Scotland and, in 1359, King John II of France. The following year the castle was granted to Edwards third son, John of Gaunt who spent much time there, the defences were repaired and strengthened again at this time. When John of Gaunt died in 1399, Richard II seized all the Lancastrian estates, including Hertford Castle, where he installed his new wife, the eight-year-old Princess Isabella. The castle continued to remain in hands and in 1418 Henry V granted it to his new wife, Princess Katherine of France. Henrys son Henry VI spent much of his infancy at the castle, in 1445 he married Margaret of Anjou and granted her the castle. However as a result of the Wars of the Roses the crown went to Edward IV who granted the castle to his wife, when Richard III became king, the castle was granted to one of his greatest supporters, the Duke of Buckingham. After the downfall of Richard III, Henry VII conferred the castle to his wife in 1487, however, his son Henry VIII spent considerable sums turning the castle into a civilian palace, including building the gatehouse, which still stands. Subsequently, Edward VI granted the castle to Princess Mary, during her eventual reign, the castle was used to imprison Protestant martyrs
11.
Battle of Lincoln (1217)
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Louiss forces were attacked by a relief force under the command of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke. Thomas, the Comte du Perche, commanding the French troops, was killed, the looting that took place afterwards is known as the Lincoln Fair. The citizens of Lincoln were loyal to Louis so Henrys forces sacked the city, in 1216, during the First Barons War over the English succession, Prince Louis of France entered London and proclaimed himself King of England. Louis was supported by various English barons who resisted the rule of King John, John died in the middle of the war, and his nine-year-old son Henry III was crowned by the English. Once John died, many barons were willing to change sides, William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, a knight of great skill and prowess, served as regent for Henry. With the power of the kings command, Marshal called all nobles holding castles in England to a muster in Newark. Approximately 400 knights,250 crossbowmen, and an auxiliary force of both mounted and foot soldiers were assembled. Marshal marched his forces to the city of Lincoln to break Prince Louiss siege, medieval Lincoln was an ancient walled city with a Norman castle near its centre, straddling the crossroads of two important Roman-built highways, Ermine Street and Fosse Way. These trans-England routes were historic and major arteries for national trade and government, William the Conqueror had ordered the construction of Lincoln Castle on a hilltop over an old Roman fort 150 years earlier. At the time of the battle in May 1217, Louiss forces took the city of Lincoln and its garrison, loyal to King Henry, continued to defend the important fortification from forces loyal to Prince Louis, led by Thomas, the Count of Perche. Marshals forces made their approach from the town of Stowe, a few miles northwest of Lincoln, the advance was known to Thomas, Count of Perche, but his knights were uncertain as to the enemys strength. Those who believed Marshals force was small in number favoured an offensive plan. The defensive plan was taken, though not without some continuing dissension, Marshal proceeded to the section of the city walls nearest the castle, at the north gate. All of Marshals crossbowmen, led by the nobleman Falkes de Breauté, assaulted, Perches forces did not respond, but continued the castle siege. Marshals main force secured the gate, while Breautés crossbowmen took up high positions on the rooftops of houses. Volleys of bolts from this high ground rained death, damage, then, in the final blow, Marshals knights and footsoldiers charged Perches siege forces. Perche was offered a surrender, but fought to the death as the siege collapsed into a scattered rout and those of Louiss army who were not captured fled Lincoln, by the south city gate, to London. The battle took about six hours, the city of Lincoln was pillaged by Marshals victorious army, on the pretence that it was loyal to Louis, later euphemistically called the Lincoln Fair
12.
Rochester Castle
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Rochester Castle stands on the east bank of the River Medway in Rochester, Kent, South East England. The 12th-century keep or stone tower, which is the castles most prominent feature, is one of the best preserved in England or France, situated on the River Medway and Watling Street, Rochester served as a strategically important royal castle. During the late medieval period it helped protect Englands south-east coast from invasion, the first castle at Rochester was founded in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest. It was given to Bishop Odo, probably by his half-brother William the Conqueror, during the Rebellion of 1088 over the succession to the English throne, Odo supported Robert Curthose, the Conquerors eldest son, against William Rufus. It was during this conflict that the castle first saw military action, after the garrison capitulated, this first castle was abandoned. Between 1087 and 1089, Rufus asked Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester and he established the current extent of the castle. Though much altered through the centuries, some parts of Gundulfs work survive, in 1127 King Henry I granted the castle to the Archbishop of Canterbury in perpetuity. William de Corbeil built the keep that still dominates the castle today. Throughout the 12th century the castle remained in the custody of the archbishops, during the First Barons War in King Johns reign, baronial forces captured the castle from Archbishop Stephen Langton and held it against the king, who then besieged it. The Barnwell chronicler remarked Our age has not known a siege so hard pressed nor so strongly resisted, after resisting for just over seven weeks, the garrison surrendered. Although the castle had been damaged, with breaches in the outer walls and one corner of the keep collapsed. The castle did not stay under Johns control for long, in 1216 it was captured by the French Prince Louis, who was the new leader of the baronial faction. John died and was succeeded by his son King Henry III in 1216, the year, the war ended. Rochester was besieged for the time in 1264 during the Second Barons War. The castles royal constable, Roger de Leybourne, held Rochester in support of Henry III, rebel armies led by Simon de Montfort and Gilbert de Clare entered the city and set about trying to capture the castle. Again the castles defenders resisted, though this time with a different outcome, after a week, the rebel armies raised the siege in the face of relief from Henry himself. Although the garrison did not surrender, the castle suffered damage that was not repaired until the following century. The castle saw action for the last time in 1381 when it was captured and ransacked during the Peasants Revolt
13.
Battle of Sandwich (1217)
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Not to be confused with the Battle of Sandwich. The Battle of Sandwich, also called the Battle of Dover took place on 24 August 1217 as part of the First Barons War. A Plantagenet English fleet commanded by Hubert de Burgh attacked a Capetian French armada led by Eustace the Monk and Robert of Courtenay off Sandwich, the English captured the French flagship and most of the supply vessels, forcing the rest of the French fleet to return to Calais. The French fleet was attempting to bring supplies to Prince Louis, later King Louis VIII of France, the English vessels attacked from windward, seizing Eustaces ship, making Robert and the knights prisoner and killing the rest of the crew. Eustace, a pirate, was executed after being taken prisoner. The battle convinced Prince Louis to abandon his effort to conquer England, Eustace the Monk once belonged to a monastic order, but he broke his vows and became a pirate along with his brothers and friends. His early successes at this endeavor attracted many men and his pirates became a menace to shipping in the English Channel. The English opponents of Eustace credited the man with diabolical ingenuity, from 1205 to 1208, Eustace worked for King John I of England. With the English sovereigns blessing he seized the Channel Islands and was allowed to them for John. In 1212, Eustace switched his allegiance to France and was chased out of England, the year 1215 saw his ships transporting war engines to the English barons who opposed John. When Prince Louis sailed for London, he traveled in Eustaces fleet and it was thanks to Eustaces help that Louis was able to quickly capture London and the Cinque Ports. After his lieutenants were badly defeated at the Battle of Lincoln on 20 May 1217, Prince Louis raised his siege of Dover Castle, signalling his willingness to negotiate an end to the struggle, he agreed to meet at Brentford with adherents of the boy-king Henry III of England. The victor of Lincoln, William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, however, in order to pardon the bishops who had gone over to Louis cause, Pope Honorius IIIs acquiescence was required. Since this was not possible without a long journey to Rome, Louis received the news that reinforcements and supplies would soon arrive from France. Encouraged, he resolved to fight on and it should be noted that Louis had been invited to land with troops in England by the English barons in revolt against the tyranny of King John and this was not a war of nations but of factions. On 24 August, in weather, the French fleet set out from Calais. Though the ships were equipped by Eustace the Monk, command of the knights, the wife of Prince Louis, Blanche of Castile was also an important organizer of the relief effort. Opposing the French was Philip dAubigny, commander of the southeastern coast, the Earl of Pembroke had arrived at New Romney on 19 August and summoned the sailors of the Cinque Ports
14.
Roman conquest of Britain
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The Roman conquest of Britain was a gradual process, beginning effectively in AD43 under Emperor Claudius, whose general Aulus Plautius served as first governor of Roman Britain. Great Britain had already frequently been the target of invasions, planned and actual, by forces of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Between 55 BC and the 40s AD, the status quo of tribute, hostages, augustus prepared invasions in 34 BC,27 BC and 25 BC. The first and third were called off due to revolts elsewhere in the empire, by the 40s AD, the political situation within Britain was apparently in ferment. Modern historians are unsure if that was meant to be a punishment for the soldiers mutiny or due to Caligulas derangement. Certainly this invasion attempt readied the troops and facilities that would make Claudius invasion possible three years later, for example, Caligula built a lighthouse at Bononia that provided a model for the one built soon after at Dubris. Three years later, in 43, possibly by re-collecting Caligulas troops, Claudius mounted a force to re-instate Verica. Aulus Plautius, a senator, was given overall charge of four legions, totalling about 20,000 men. The legions were, Legio II Augusta Legio IX Hispana Legio XIV Gemina Legio XX Valeria Victrix The II Augusta is known to have been commanded by the future emperor Vespasian. Three other men of rank to command legions are known from the sources to have been involved in the invasion. Cassius Dio mentions Gnaeus Hosidius Geta, who led the IX Hispana. He wrote that Sabinus was Vespasians lieutenant, but as Sabinus was the brother and preceded Vespasian into public life. Eutropius mentions Gnaeus Sentius Saturninus, although as a former consul he may have been too senior, the main invasion force under Aulus Plautius crossed in three divisions. The port of departure is usually taken to have been Boulogne, neither of these locations is certain. Richborough has a natural harbour which would have been suitable. However, Dio says the Romans sailed east to west, some historians suggest a sailing from Boulogne to the Solent, landing in the vicinity of Noviomagus or Southampton, in territory formerly ruled by Verica. An alternative explanation might be a sailing from the mouth of the Rhine to Richborough, British resistance was led by Togodumnus and Caratacus, sons of the late king of the Catuvellauni, Cunobeline. A substantial British force met the Romans at a river crossing thought to be near Rochester on the River Medway, the battle raged for two days
15.
Bronze Age
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The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
16.
Dubris
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Dubris, also known as Portus Dubris and Dubrae, was a port in Roman Britain on the site of present-day Dover, Kent, England. As the closest point to continental Europe and the site of the estuary of the Dour, the Dour is now covered over for much of its course through the town. In the Roman era, it grew into an important military, mercantile and cross-channel harbour and it was fortified and garrisoned initially by the Classis Britannica, and later by troops based in a Saxon Shore Fort. For this reason, its harbor was in Gesoriacum, not Dover. However, it did have other, smaller bases in Britannia itself, at Rutupiae, two lighthouses, each called the Pharos, were built soon after the conquest. Proposals of their range from 50,80 or c. 138, though the consensus is for a 1st-century AD date. They were sited on the two heights and modelled on the one built for Caligulas aborted invasion at Boulogne and this Roman Pharos has been a Grade I-listed building since 1974. At its peak, Dubris was a trading centre, taking over from Rutupiae as the main Roman cross-Channel port. With Rutupiae, it was one of the points for Watling Street. During the construction of the new A256/York Street bypass in the 1970s Roman remains were discovered, the archaeologists discovered a Roman mansio now known as the Roman Painted House. The mansio, a hostel for government officials, was built in c and it was discovered in 1970 by the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit and, as it houses some of the finest example of Roman murals in Britain, it has been called Britains Buried Pompeii. Above a lower dado, of red or green, a scheme of multi-coloured panels framed by fluted columns is still visible. The columns sit on projecting bases above a stage, producing a clear 3-D effect, parts of 28 panels survive, each with a motif relating to Bacchus, the Roman God of wine. This Bacchic link, and the proximity to the baths. However, this is circumstantial evidence and so most academics believe the rooms are too small to have supported this line of work. Dubriss mansio was demolished in 270 for the construction of a Saxon Shore Fort and this demolition preserved the mansio and its wall-paintings better than usual, since the foots of the walls were contained in the forts rampart. A small amount of the remains is now visible, on request, at Dover Library and Discovery Centre
17.
Lighthouse of Alexandria
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The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria, was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom between 280 and 247 BC which was between 120 and 137 m tall. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, for centuries it was one of the tallest man-made structures in the world. Badly damaged by three earthquakes between AD956 and 1323, it became an abandoned ruin. It was the third longest surviving ancient wonder until 1480, when the last of its remnant stones were used to build the Citadel of Qaitbay on the site, in 1994, French archaeologists discovered some remains of the lighthouse on the floor of Alexandrias Eastern Harbour. The Ministry of State of Antiquities in Egypt has planned, as of late 2015, to turn submerged ruins of ancient Alexandria, including those of the Pharos, Pharos was a small island located on the western edge of the Nile Delta. In 332 BC Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria on an isthmus opposite Pharos, Alexandria and Pharos were later connected by a mole spanning more than 1200 metres, which was called the Heptastadion. The east side of the mole became the Great Harbour, now an open bay, on the west side lay the port of Eunostos, the lighthouse was constructed in the 3rd century BC. After Alexander the Great died of a fever at age 32, the first Ptolemy announced himself king in 305 BC, the building was finished during the reign of his son, the second Ptolemy. It took twelve years to complete, at a total cost of 800 talents, the light was produced by a furnace at the top, and the tower was said to have been built mostly with solid blocks of limestone. Strabo reported that Sostratus had a dedication inscribed in letters to the Saviour Gods. Later Pliny the Elder wrote that Sostratus was the architect, which is disputed, in the second century AD the satirist Lucian wrote that Sostratus inscribed his name under plaster bearing the name of Ptolemy. This was so that when the plaster with Ptolemys name fell off, judith McKenzie writes that The Arab descriptions of the lighthouse are remarkably consistent, although it was repaired several times especially after earthquake damage. The height they give varies only fifteen per cent from c.103 to 118 m, the fullest description of the lighthouse comes from Arab traveller Abou Haggag Youssef Ibn Mohammed el-Balawi el-Andaloussi, who visited Alexandria in A. D.1166. At its apex was positioned a mirror which reflected sunlight during the day, extant Roman coins struck by the Alexandrian mint show that a statue of a Triton was positioned on each of the buildings four corners. A statue of Poseidon or Zeus stood atop the lighthouse, the Phaross masonry blocks were interlocked, sealed together using molten lead, to withstand the pounding of the waves. Al-Masudi writes that the eastern side featured an inscription dedicated to Zeus. The lighthouse was damaged in the earthquake of 956. Finally the stubby remnant disappeared in 1480, when the then-Sultan of Egypt, Qaitbay, the search was cunningly made in such a manner that the foundations were undermined, and the Pharos collapsed
18.
Battle of Hastings
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It took place approximately 7 miles northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory. The background to the battle was the death of the childless King Edward the Confessor in January 1066, Harold was crowned king shortly after Edwards death, but faced invasions by William, his own brother Tostig and the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada. Hardrada and Tostig defeated a hastily gathered army of Englishmen at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September 1066, the deaths of Tostig and Hardrada at Stamford Bridge left William as Harolds only serious opponent. While Harold and his forces were recovering, William landed his forces in the south of England at Pevensey on 28 September 1066. Harold was forced to march south swiftly, gathering forces as he went, the exact numbers present at the battle are unknown, modern estimates are around 10,000 for William and about 7,000 for Harold. Harold appears to have tried to surprise William, but scouts found his army and reported its arrival to William, the battle lasted from about 9 am to dusk. Early efforts of the invaders to break the English battle lines had little effect, therefore, Harolds death, probably near the end of the battle, led to the retreat and defeat of most of his army. After further marching and some skirmishes, William was crowned as king on Christmas Day 1066, there continued to be rebellions and resistance to Williams rule, but Hastings effectively marked the culmination of Williams conquest of England. Casualty figures are hard to come by, but some estimate that 2,000 invaders died along with about twice that number of Englishmen. William founded a monastery at the site of the battle, the altar of the abbey church supposedly placed at the spot where Harold died. In 911, French Carolingian ruler Charles the Simple allowed a group of Vikings to settle in Normandy under their leader Rollo and their settlement proved successful, and they quickly adapted to the indigenous culture, renouncing paganism, converting to Christianity, and intermarrying with the local population. Over time, the frontiers of the duchy expanded to the west, in 1002, King Æthelred II of England married Emma, the sister of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Their son Edward the Confessor spent many years in exile in Normandy, Edward was childless and embroiled in conflict with the formidable Godwin, Earl of Wessex and his sons, and he may also have encouraged Duke William of Normandys ambitions for the English throne. Following King Edwards death on 5 January 1066, the lack of a clear heir led to a succession in which several contenders laid claim to the throne of England. Edwards immediate successor was the Earl of Wessex, Harold Godwinson, Harold was at once challenged by two powerful neighbouring rulers. Duke William claimed that he had promised the throne by King Edward. Harald III of Norway, commonly known as Harald Hardrada, also contested the succession, William and Harald Hardrada immediately set about assembling troops and ships for separate invasions. In early 1066, Harolds exiled brother Tostig Godwinson raided south-eastern England with a fleet he had recruited in Flanders, threatened by Harolds fleet, Tostig moved north and raided in East Anglia and Lincolnshire
19.
William the Conqueror
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William I, usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. A descendant of Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy from 1035 onward, after a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England six years later. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands, William was the son of the unmarried Robert I, Duke of Normandy, by Roberts mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and his youth caused some difficulties for him after he succeeded his father, during his childhood and adolescence, members of the Norman aristocracy battled each other, both for control of the child duke and for their own ends. In 1047 William was able to quash a rebellion and begin to establish his authority over the duchy and his marriage in the 1050s to Matilda of Flanders provided him with a powerful ally in the neighbouring county of Flanders. By the time of his marriage, William was able to arrange the appointments of his supporters as bishops and his consolidation of power allowed him to expand his horizons, and by 1062 William was able to secure control of the neighbouring county of Maine. In the 1050s and early 1060s William became a contender for the throne of England, then held by the childless Edward the Confessor, his first cousin once removed. There were other claimants, including the powerful English earl Harold Godwinson. William argued that Edward had previously promised the throne to him, William built a large fleet and invaded England in September 1066, decisively defeating and killing Harold at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. After further military efforts William was crowned king on Christmas Day 1066 and he made arrangements for the governance of England in early 1067 before returning to Normandy. Several unsuccessful rebellions followed, but by 1075 Williams hold on England was mostly secure, Williams final years were marked by difficulties in his continental domains, troubles with his eldest son, and threatened invasions of England by the Danes. In 1086 William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a listing all the landholders in England along with their holdings. William died in September 1087 while leading a campaign in northern France and his reign in England was marked by the construction of castles, the settling of a new Norman nobility on the land, and change in the composition of the English clergy. He did not try to integrate his various domains into one empire, Williams lands were divided after his death, Normandy went to his eldest son, Robert Curthose, and his second surviving son, William Rufus, received England. Norsemen first began raiding in what became Normandy in the late 8th century, permanent Scandinavian settlement occurred before 911, when Rollo, one of the Viking leaders, and King Charles the Simple of France reached an agreement surrendering the county of Rouen to Rollo. The lands around Rouen became the core of the duchy of Normandy. Normandy may have used as a base when Scandinavian attacks on England were renewed at the end of the 10th century. In an effort to improve matters, King Æthelred the Unready took Emma of Normandy, sister of Duke Richard II, as his second wife in 1002
20.
Westminster Abbey
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It is one of the United Kingdoms most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral, since 1560, however, the building is no longer an abbey nor a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England Royal Peculiar—a church responsible directly to the sovereign. The building itself is the abbey church. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site in the 7th century, at the time of Mellitus, construction of the present church began in 1245, on the orders of King Henry III. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have held in Westminster Abbey. There have been at least 16 royal weddings at the abbey since 1100, two were of reigning monarchs, although, before 1919, there had been none for some 500 years. The first reports of the abbey are based on a tradition claiming that a young fisherman called Aldrich on the River Thames saw a vision of Saint Peter near the site. This seems to be quoted to justify the gifts of salmon from Thames fishermen that the abbey received in later years, in the present was, the Fishmongers Company still gives a salmon every year. The proven origins are that in the 960s or early 970s, Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peters Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church. It was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style, the building was completed around 1090 and was consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edwards death on 5 January 1066. A week later, he was buried in the church, and, nine years later and his successor, Harold II, was probably crowned in the abbey, although the first documented coronation is that of William the Conqueror later the same year. The only extant depiction of Edwards abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry, construction of the present church was begun in 1245 by Henry III who selected the site for his burial. The abbot and monks, in proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, the abbot often was employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. The abbey built shops and dwellings on the west side, encroaching upon the sanctuary, the abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings. The Confessors shrine subsequently played a part in his canonisation. The work continued between 1245 and 1517 and was finished by the architect Henry Yevele in the reign of Richard II. Henry III also commissioned the unique Cosmati pavement in front of the High Altar, Henry VII added a Perpendicular style chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1503. Much of the came from Caen, in France, the Isle of Portland
21.
Old Romney
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Old Romney is a village and civil parish in the Shepway District of Kent, England. The village, as its name suggests, is the site of the settlement. It lies on what was once an island in the erstwhile River Rother estuary and it was noted in Roman times as Vetus Rumellenum, by the time of the Domesday Book New Romney was already in existence. Old Romney is a village and civil parish located in the Shepway district of Kent, Old Romney St. Clement is a parish dating back to ancient times and, as the name hints out, commenced the primitive settlement of Romney Marsh. It was, thus, the port of Romney which over time, stretched out along the Rother toward the sea with either half being labelled Old. As the port let go the importance of the village of Old Romney dwindled and not long after that, only St. Clement, the location of the village and civil parish is on an island in the River Rother. St Clements Church in Old Romney, Romney Marsh, is a Church of England parish church and it was originally constructed in the 12th century although there is some evidence of an original structure on the site dating back to the 8th century. The church with the Georgian minstrels gallery and box pews retaining their rose pink colour was featured in the Doctor Syn film of 1962, disney and the Rank Film Organisation repainted them in for the filming. Derek Jarman, film-maker and AIDS activist, who is buried in the churchyard of St Clements church Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough who owned Agney Court in this parish. Leaflet - The Mediaeval churches of Romney Marsh, available at St. Clements Photos of Old Romney and surrounding area on geograph. org. uk Romney Deanery, St. Clements web page
22.
Cinque Ports
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The Confederation of Cinque Ports is a historic series of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex. It was originally formed for military and trade purposes, but is now entirely ceremonial and it lies at the eastern end of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest. The name is Norman French, meaning five ports and they were, Hastings New Romney Hythe Dover Sandwich However, Rye, originally a subsidiary of New Romney, changed to become one of the Cinque Ports once New Romney was damaged by storms and silted up. Other towns also contribute to the confederation, including two Antient Towns, and seven Limbs, the five ports are supported by the two so-called Antient Towns of Rye and Winchelsea, whose councils traditionally maintained defence contingents for the realm of England. Apart from the five ports and the two Antient Towns, there are eight members of the Confederation, which are considered to be Limbs of the other towns. The coastal confederation during its mediaeval period consisted of a confederation of 42 towns and villages in all. Johns, St. Peters, Ringwould, Woodchurch and Kingsdown Limbs of Hythe – West Hythe Walmer, Ramsgate A Royal Charter of 1155 established the ports to maintain ships ready for the Crown in case of need. The chief obligation laid upon the ports, as a duty, was to provide 57 ships for 15 days service to the king annually. The leeway given to the Cinque Ports, and the turning of an eye to misbehaviour, led to smuggling. A significant factor in the need to maintain the authority of the Cinque Ports by the King was the development of the Royal Navy, the associated ports, known as limbs, were given the same privileges. The five head ports and two antient towns were entitled to send two Members to Parliament, the town of Hastings was the head port of the Cinque Ports in mediaeval times. The towns also had their own system of courts, all Freemen of the ports, termed portsmen, were deemed in the age of Feudalism to be barons, and thus members of the baronage entitled to attend the kings parliament. Termed Barons of the Cinque Ports, they reflected an early concept that military service at sea constituted land tenure per baroniam making them quasi feudal barons, writs of summons to parliament were sent to the warden following which representative barons of the Cinque Ports were selected to attend parliament. Thus the wardens duty in this respect was similar to that of the sheriff who received the writs for distribution to the barons in the shires and this no doubt related to their privileges as monopolies. The warden and barons often experienced clashes of jurisdiction, as time went by and some ports declined or silted up, others were added. Rye and Winchelsea were attached to Hastings as Antient Towns in the 12th century, the following corporate limbs were added in the 15th century, Lydd, Faversham, Folkestone, Deal, Tenterden, Margate and Ramsgate. At one time there were 23 limbs, although by the 14th century the confederation faced wider challenges from a greater consolidation of national identity in the monarchy and Parliament, the legacy of the Saxon authority remained. Even after the 15th century, the antient towns continued to serve with the supply of transport ships and it was here that from 1433 the White and Black Books of the Cinque Port Courts were kept
23.
Invicta (motto)
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Invicta was used in Roma invicta meaning Unconquered Rome and is the motto of the county of Kent, England. Invicta has been a motto for centuries, Roma is a Latin phrase, meaning Unconquered Rome, inscribed on the Statue of Rome. It was a motto used until the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. This symbolic statement was printed onto gold coins, to help boost the morale of the failing Empire. For Kent, It dates back to the invasion of England by William The Conqueror, as the official motto, it appears on the coat of arms of Kent County Council. Legend has it that, while marching from the site at Hastings. While passing through Kent, the local people picked up branches, scared, William and his army took flight and took a different route to London. As the people of Kent felt that they had chased William away, a different version of the legend above is depicted on a monument at Swanscombe in Kent where legend states this meeting took place on the Old Roman Road to London. The monument was moved in the early 1960s due to the construction of the A2 dual carriageway and it is now located in the church yard of Saint Peter and Saint Pauls Church in Swanscombe where the picture was taken. The monument states that Near this spot by ancient tradition the men of Kent and Kentish men carrying boughs on their shoulders and they offered peace if he would grant their ancient rights and liberties otherwise war and that most deadly. Their request was granted and from that day the motto of kent has been INVICTA meaning Unconquered, as the motto of the county, Invicta is now a regularly used term within Kent. Cidade Invicta is the nickname of the city of Porto, Portugal and it was earned during the Napoleonic invasions in the 19th century. Roman Empire Flag of Kent, sometimes referred to as the Invicta Flag White horse of Kent, a symbol closely associated with Kent, sometimes referred to as Invicta
24.
Anglo-Saxons
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The Anglo-Saxons are a people who have inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including government of shires. During this period, Christianity was re-established and there was a flowering of literature, charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England, in scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English. The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity and it developed from divergent groups in association with the peoples adoption of Christianity, and was integral to the establishment of various kingdoms. Threatened by extended Danish invasions and occupation of eastern England, this identity was re-established, the visible Anglo-Saxon culture can be seen in the material culture of buildings, dress styles, illuminated texts and grave goods. Behind the symbolic nature of these emblems, there are strong elements of tribal. The elite declared themselves as kings who developed burhs, and identified their roles and peoples in Biblical terms, above all, as Helena Hamerow has observed, local and extended kin groups remained. the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Use of the term Anglo-Saxon assumes that the words Angles, Saxons or Anglo-Saxon have the meaning in all the sources. Assigning ethnic labels such as Anglo-Saxon is fraught with difficulties and this term began to be used only in the 8th century to distinguish the Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent. The Old English ethnonym Angul-Seaxan comes from the Latin Angli-Saxones and became the name of the peoples Bede calls Anglorum, Anglo-Saxon is a term that was rarely used by Anglo-Saxons themselves, it is not an autonym. It is likely they identified as ængli, Seaxe or, more probably, also, the use of Anglo-Saxon disguises the extent to which people identified as Anglo-Scandinavian after the Viking age or the conquest of 1016, or as Anglo-Norman after the Norman conquest. The earliest historical references using this term are from outside Britain, referring to piratical Germanic raiders, Saxones who attacked the shores of Britain, procopius states that Britain was settled by three races, the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in writing of the 8th century. The name therefore seemed to mean English Saxons, the Christian church seems to have used the word Angli, for example in the story of Pope Gregory I and his remark, Non Angli sed angeli. The terms ænglisc and Angelcynn were also used by West Saxon King Alfred to refer to the people, at other times he uses the term rex Anglorum, which presumably meant both Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Alfred the Great used Anglosaxonum Rex, the term Engla cyningc is used by Æthelred
25.
Burgh
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A burgh /ˈbʌrə/ was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town, or toun in Scots. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs, Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United Kingdom. Following local government reorganization in 1975 the title of royal burgh remains in use in many towns, by 1130, David I had established other burghs including Edinburgh, Stirling, Dunfermline, Perth, Dumfries, Jedburgh, Montrose and Lanark. Most of the burghs granted charters in his reign probably already existed as settlements, charters were copied almost verbatim from those used in England, and early burgesses were usually invited English and Flemish settlers. They were able to impose tolls and fines on traders within a region outside their settlements, in the south-west, Glasgow, Ayr and Kirkcudbright were aided by the less profitable sea trade with Ireland and to a lesser extent France and Spain. The founding of 16 royal burghs can be traced to the reign of David I, in addition to the major royal burghs, the late Middle Ages saw the proliferation of baronial and ecclesiastical burghs, with 51 created between 1450 and 1516. Most of these were smaller than their royal counterparts. Excluded from foreign trade, they acted mainly as local markets, Burghs were centres of basic crafts, including the manufacture of shoes, clothes, dishes, pots, joinery, bread and ale, which would normally be sold to indwellers and outdwellers on market days. In general, burghs carried out far more local trading with their hinterlands, on which they relied for food and raw materials, Burghs had rights to representation in the Parliament of Scotland. Under the Acts of Union of 1707 many became parliamentary burghs, there were several types of burgh, including, Royal burgh, founded by Royal charter. Burgh of regality, granted to a nobleman or lord of regality, Burgh of barony, granted to a tenant-in-chief, with narrower powers. Parliamentary burgh or Burgh constituency, a type of parliamentary constituency, Police burgh, a burgh operating a police system of town government. Until 1833, each burgh had a different constitution or sett, the government of the burgh was often in the hands of a self-nominating corporation, and few local government functions were performed, these were often left to ad hoc bodies. Two pieces of reforming legislation were enacted in 1834, The Royal Burghs Act, the Royal Burghs Act provided for the election of magistrates and councillors. Each burgh was to have a council consisting of a provost, magistrates. Every parliamentary elector living within the royalty or area of the royal burgh, one third of the common council was elected each year. The councillors selected a number of their members to be bailies, the provost, or chief magistrate, was elected from among the council every three years. The Royal Burghs Act was also extended to the 12 parliamentary burghs which had recently been enfranchised and these were growing industrial centres, and apart from the lack of a charter, they had identical powers and privileges to the royal burghs
26.
St Mary de Castro (Dover)
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St Mary in Castro, or St Mary de Castro, is a church in the grounds of Dover Castle, Kent, south-east England. It is a heavily restored Saxon structure, built next to a Roman lighthouse which became the church bell-tower, St Mary serves the local population and the army, and is the church of the Dover Garrison. Dover is a port on the south-east coast of England. Its proximity to mainland Europe has made it a key military, maritime, the Romans built forts here in c. AD270, and the town has fortifications from many eras since, the Romans also built two pharoses, possibly c. AD130, on the Eastern and Western Heights above the gap in the cliffs, St Mary in Castro is on the Eastern Heights. There are records of a church being built within the castle by Eadbald of Kent in the 630s, however, it is unclear whether this means within the Saxon burgh on the Eastern Heights, or within the ruins of old Roman fortifications in the valley. The large, late-Saxon cemetery around the present church does suggest the existence of a c.600 church, whether or not it had a predecessor, the present Saxon church was built on the Eastern Heights around AD1000. The plinth that projects out from beneath the church and on which it stands, the church is cruciform with a central tower the same width as the nave but broader than the chancel and transepts. The door arch is the earliest to survive in any standing church in England, the Early English vault and the altar recess in the southeast corner of the nave were probably both added to the existing church at the end of the twelfth century. Edmund, St. Adrian and St. Edward, along with an image of St. John the Evangelist. A new stage was added to the four surviving Roman stages of the pharos to turn it into a bell tower, in 1252, three bells were cast at Canterbury to be hung in the pharos. In 1342–3, three bells were out of St Mary in Castro to another St Marys church, in the nearby village of Lower Hardres. They were replaced in 1345 by two newly cast bells, weighing 4266 lb and 1078 lb, and costing £15 18s, between 1426 and 1437, works on the pharos cost £176 11s. 11½d and included five new stone windows in the medieval stage, other works on the church included repainting between 1324 and 1334 by John of Maidstone, and over £36 spent on church and keep in 1494, although the proportion spent on the church is unknown. The latter work was by Sir Edward Poynings, who may well have been deputising for Prince Henry and it took another six years, but in 1582 fourteen small chairs were at last bought. Public worship then lasted to 1690, though burials of troops from the garrison in the churchyard continued for some time after that. The remaining ruin was turned into a storehouse and cooperage in 1780, but a collapse in 1801 led to its becoming a coal store by 1808
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Motte and bailey
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The Normans introduced the design into England and Wales following their invasion in 1066. Motte-and-bailey castles were adopted in Scotland, Ireland, the Low Countries, by the end of the 13th century, the design was largely superseded by alternative forms of fortification, but the earthworks remain a prominent feature in many countries. The term motte and bailey is a modern one, and is not medieval in origin. The word bailey comes from the Norman-French baille, or basse-cour, in medieval sources, the Latin term castellum was used to describe the bailey complex within these castles. One contemporary account of these comes from Jean de Colmieu around 1130. De Colmieu described how the nobles would build a mound of earth as high as they can and dig a ditch about it as wide and deep as possible. The space on top of the mound is enclosed by a palisade of very strong hewn logs, inside the enclosure is a citadel, or keep, which commands the whole circuit of the defences. Mottes were made out of earth and flattened on top, some were also built over older artificial structures, such as Bronze Age barrows. The size of mottes varied considerably, with these mounds being 3 metres to 30 metres in height and this minimum height of 3 metres for mottes is usually intended to exclude smaller mounds which often had non-military purposes. In England and Wales, only 7% of mottes were taller than 10 metres high, a motte was protected by a ditch around it, which would typically have also been a source of the earth and soil for constructing the mound itself. A keep and a wall would usually be built on top of the motte. Smaller mottes could only support simple towers with room for a few soldiers, wooden structures on mottes could be protected by skins and hides to prevent them being easily set alight during a siege. The bailey was a courtyard overlooked by the motte and surrounded by a wooden fence called a palisade. The bailey was often kidney-shaped to fit against a circular motte, the bailey would contain a wide number of buildings, including a hall, kitchens, a chapel, barracks, stores, stables, forges or workshops, and was the centre of the castles economic activity. The bailey was linked to the motte either by a bridge stretching between the two, or, more popularly in England, by steps cut into the motte. Typically the ditch of the motte and the bailey joined, forming a figure of eight around the castle, wherever possible, nearby streams and rivers would be dammed or diverted, creating water-filled moats, artificial lakes and other forms of water defences. In practice, there was a number of variations to this common design. A castle could have more than one bailey, at Warkworth Castle an inner, some baileys had two mottes, such as those at Lincoln
28.
Louis VIII of France
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Louis VIII the Lion was King of France from 1223 to 1226. He also claimed the title King of England from 1216 to 1217, Louis VIII was born in Paris, the son of King Philip II of France and Isabelle of Hainaut, from whom he inherited the County of Artois. While Louis VIII only briefly reigned as king of France, he was a leader in his years as crown prince. During the First Barons War of 1215-17 against King John of England, after his victory at the Battle of Roche-au-Moine in 1214, he invaded southern England and was proclaimed King of England by rebellious barons in London on the 2 June 1216. He was never crowned, however, and renounced his claim after being excommunicated and repelled, in 1217, Louis started the conquest of Guyenne, leaving only a small region around Bordeaux to Henry III of England. Louiss short reign was marked by an intervention using royal forces into the Albigensian Crusade in southern France that decisively moved the conflict towards a conclusion and he died in 1226 and was succeeded by his son Louis IX. In summer 1195, a marriage between Louis and Eleanor of Brittany, niece of Richard I of England, was suggested for an alliance between Philip II and Richard, but it failed and this led to a sudden deterioration in relations between Richard and Philip. On 23 May 1200, at the age of 12, Louis was married to Blanche of Castile, daughter of King Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor of England, the marriage could only be concluded after prolonged negotiations between King Philip II of France and Blanches uncle John. In 1214, King John of England began his campaign to reclaim the Duchy of Normandy from Philip II. John was optimistic, as he had built up alliances with Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, Count Renaud of Boulogne. Johns plan was to split Philips forces by pushing north-east from Poitou towards Paris, while Otto, Renaud and Ferdinand, supported by the Earl of Salisbury, marched south-west from Flanders. Whereas Philip II took personal command of the front against the emperor and his allies. The first part of the campaign went well for the English, with John outmanoeuvring the forces under the command of Prince Louis, John besieged the castle of Roche-au-Moine, a key stronghold, forcing Louis to give battle against Johns larger army. The local Angevin nobles refused to advance with the king, left at something of a disadvantage, shortly afterwards, Philip won the hard-fought Battle of Bouvines in the north against Otto and Johns other allies, bringing an end to Johns hopes of retaking Normandy. In 1215, the English barons rebelled against the unpopular King John in the First Barons War, the barons offered the throne to Prince Louis, who landed unopposed on the Isle of Thanet in eastern Kent, England, at the head of an army on 21 May 1216. There was little resistance when the prince entered London, and Louis was proclaimed king at Old St Pauls Cathedral with great pomp and celebration in the presence of all of London. Even though he was not crowned, many nobles, as well as King Alexander II of Scotland on behalf of his English possessions, on 14 June 1216, Louis captured Winchester and soon controlled over half of the English kingdom. But just when it seemed that England was his, King Johns death in October 1216 caused many of the barons to desert Louis in favour of Johns nine-year-old son
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Stephen de Pencester
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Stephen de Pencester was Warden of the Cinque Ports when the first authoritative list of Cinque Ports Confederation Members was produced in 1293. Pencester was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports for 32 years, his finishing in 1299 when the Baron de Burghersh was elected. When she inherited the parish of Tunstall in Kent and they resided both at Allington and Penshurst. When Pencester died in 1303, Margerie then married to Robert de Orreby, lee, Sidney, ed. Pencester, Stephen de
30.
Windmill
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A windmill is a mill that converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Centuries ago, windmills usually were used to mill grain, pump water, thus they often were gristmills, windpumps, or both. The majority of modern windmills take the form of wind turbines used to generate electricity, the windwheel of the Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria in the first century is the earliest known instance of using a wind-driven wheel to power a machine. Another early example of a wheel was the prayer wheel. It has been claimed that the Babylonian emperor Hammurabi planned to use wind power for his ambitious project in the seventeenth century BCE. The first practical windmills had sails that rotated in a horizontal plane, according to Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, these panemone windmills were invented in eastern Persia as recorded by the Persian geographer Estakhri in the ninth century. The authenticity of an anecdote of a windmill involving the second caliph Umar is questioned on the grounds that it appears in a tenth-century document. Made of six to 12 sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind grain or draw up water, Windmills were in widespread use across the Middle East and Central Asia, and later spread to China and India from there. A similar type of windmill with rectangular blades, used for irrigation, can also be found in thirteenth-century China. Horizontal windmills were built, in numbers, in Europe during the 18th and nineteenth centuries, for example Fowlers Mill at Battersea in London. Due to a lack of evidence, debate occurs among historians as to whether or not Middle Eastern horizontal windmills triggered the development of European windmills. In northwestern Europe, the horizontal-axis or vertical windmill is believed to date from the last quarter of the century in the triangle of northern France, eastern England. The earliest certain reference to a windmill in Europe dates from 1185, a number of earlier, but less certainly dated, twelfth-century European sources referring to windmills have also been found. These earliest mills were used to grind cereals, the evidence at present is that the earliest type of European windmill was the post mill, so named because of the large upright post on which the mills main structure is balanced. The body contains all the milling machinery, the first post mills were of the sunken type, where the post was buried in an earth mound to support it. Later, a wooden support was developed called the trestle and this was often covered over or surrounded by a roundhouse to protect the trestle from the weather and to provide storage space. This type of windmill was the most common in Europe until the nineteenth century, in a hollow-post mill, the post on which the body is mounted is hollowed out, to accommodate the drive shaft. This makes it possible to drive machinery below or outside the body still being able to rotate the body into the wind
31.
English Civil War
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The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists over, principally, the manner of Englands government. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. The term English Civil War appears most often in the singular form, the war in all these countries are known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Unlike other civil wars in England, which focused on who should rule, this war was more concerned with the manner in which the kingdoms of England, Scotland, the two sides had their geographical strongholds, such that minority elements were silenced or fled. The strongholds of the royalty included the countryside, the shires, on the other hand, all the cathedral cities sided with Parliament. All the industrial centers, the ports, and the advanced regions of southern and eastern England typically were parliamentary strongholds. Lacey Baldwin Smith says, the words populist, rich, at times there would be two groups of three lines allowing one group to reload while the other group arranged themselves and fired. Mixed in among the musketeers were pikemen carrying pikes that were between 12 feet and 18 feet long, whose purpose was to protect the musketeers from cavalry charges. The Royalist cavaliers skill and speed on horseback led to early victories. While the Parliamentarian cavalry were slower than the cavaliers, they were better disciplined. The Royalists had a tendency to chase down individual targets after the initial charge leaving their forces scattered and tired, Cromwells cavalry, on the other hand, trained to operate as a single unit, which led to many decisive victories. The English Civil War broke out fewer than forty years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, in spite of this, James personal extravagance meant he was perennially short of money and had to resort to extra-Parliamentary sources of income. Charles hoped to unite the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland into a new single kingdom, many English Parliamentarians had suspicions regarding such a move because they feared that setting up a new kingdom might destroy the old English traditions which had bound the English monarchy. As Charles shared his fathers position on the power of the crown, at the time, the Parliament of England did not have a large permanent role in the English system of government. Instead, Parliament functioned as an advisory committee and was summoned only if. Once summoned, a continued existence was at the kings pleasure. Yet in spite of this role, Parliament had, over the preceding centuries. Without question, for a monarch, Parliaments most indispensable power was its ability to tax revenues far in excess of all other sources of revenue at the Crowns disposal
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Parliament of England
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The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. Over the centuries, the English Parliament progressively limited the power of the English monarchy which arguably culminated in the English Civil War, the Act of Union 1707 merged the English Parliament with the Parliament of Scotland to form the Parliament of Great Britain. When the Parliament of Ireland was abolished in 1801, its members were merged into what was now called the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Under a monarchical system of government, monarchs usually must consult, early kings of England had no standing army or police, and so depended on the support of powerful subjects. The monarchy had agents in every part of the country, however, under the feudal system that evolved in England following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the laws of the Crown could not have been upheld without the support of the nobility and the clergy. The former had economic and military bases of their own through major ownership of land. The Church was virtually a law unto itself in this period as it had its own system of law courts. In order to seek consultation and consent from the nobility and the clergy on major decisions. A typical Great Council would consist of archbishops, bishops, abbots, barons and earls, when this system of consultation and consent broke down, it often became impossible for government to function effectively. The most prominent instances of prior to the reign of Henry III are the disagreements between Thomas Becket and Henry II and between King John and the barons. Becket, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury between 1162 and 1170, was murdered following a long running dispute with Henry II over the jurisdiction of the Church. John, who was king from 1199 to 1216, aroused such hostility from many leading noblemen that they forced him to agree to Magna Carta in 1215, johns refusal to adhere to this charter led to civil war. The Great Council evolved into the Parliament of England, the term itself came into use during the early 13th century, deriving from the Latin and French words for discussion and speaking. The word first appears in documents in the 1230s. As a result of the work by historians G. O. Sayles and H. G. Richardson, during the 13th and 14th centuries, the kings began to call Knights of the Shire to meet when the monarch saw it as necessary. A notable example of this was in 1254 when sheriffs of counties were instructed to send Knights of the Shire to parliament to advise the king on finance, initially, parliaments were mostly summoned when the king needed to raise money through taxes. Following the Magna Carta this became a convention and this was due in no small part to the fact that King John died in 1216 and was succeeded by his young son Henry III. Leading peers and clergy governed on Henrys behalf until he came of age, among other things, they made sure that Magna Carta would be reaffirmed by the young king
33.
Trigonometric
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Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics that studies relationships involving lengths and angles of triangles. The field emerged in the Hellenistic world during the 3rd century BC from applications of geometry to astronomical studies, Trigonometry is also the foundation of surveying. Trigonometry is most simply associated with planar right-angle triangles, thus the majority of applications relate to right-angle triangles. One exception to this is spherical trigonometry, the study of triangles on spheres, surfaces of constant positive curvature, Trigonometry on surfaces of negative curvature is part of hyperbolic geometry. Trigonometry basics are often taught in schools, either as a course or as a part of a precalculus course. Sumerian astronomers studied angle measure, using a division of circles into 360 degrees, the ancient Nubians used a similar method. In 140 BC, Hipparchus gave the first tables of chords, analogous to modern tables of sine values, in the 2nd century AD, the Greco-Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy printed detailed trigonometric tables in Book 1, chapter 11 of his Almagest. Ptolemy used chord length to define his trigonometric functions, a difference from the sine convention we use today. The modern sine convention is first attested in the Surya Siddhanta and these Greek and Indian works were translated and expanded by medieval Islamic mathematicians. By the 10th century, Islamic mathematicians were using all six trigonometric functions, had tabulated their values, at about the same time, Chinese mathematicians developed trigonometry independently, although it was not a major field of study for them. At the same time, another translation of the Almagest from Greek into Latin was completed by the Cretan George of Trebizond, Trigonometry was still so little known in 16th-century northern Europe that Nicolaus Copernicus devoted two chapters of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium to explain its basic concepts. Driven by the demands of navigation and the growing need for maps of large geographic areas. Bartholomaeus Pitiscus was the first to use the word, publishing his Trigonometria in 1595, gemma Frisius described for the first time the method of triangulation still used today in surveying. It was Leonhard Euler who fully incorporated complex numbers into trigonometry, the works of the Scottish mathematicians James Gregory in the 17th century and Colin Maclaurin in the 18th century were influential in the development of trigonometric series. Also in the 18th century, Brook Taylor defined the general Taylor series, if one angle of a triangle is 90 degrees and one of the other angles is known, the third is thereby fixed, because the three angles of any triangle add up to 180 degrees. The two acute angles therefore add up to 90 degrees, they are complementary angles, the shape of a triangle is completely determined, except for similarity, by the angles. Once the angles are known, the ratios of the sides are determined, if the length of one of the sides is known, the other two are determined. Sin A = opposite hypotenuse = a c, Cosine function, defined as the ratio of the adjacent leg to the hypotenuse
34.
Royal Greenwich Observatory
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The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park, overlooking the River Thames. It played a role in the history of astronomy and navigation. The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the stone being laid on 10 August. The site was chosen by Sir Christopher Wren and he appointed John Flamsteed as the first Astronomer Royal. The building was completed in the summer of 1676, the building was often called Flamsteed House, in reference to its first occupant. The scientific work of the observatory was relocated elsewhere in stages in the first half of the 20th century,1675 –22 June, Royal Observatory founded. 1675 –10 August, construction began,1714 Longitude Act established the Board of Longitude and Longitude rewards. The Astronomer Royal was, until the Board was dissolved in 1828,1767 Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne began publication of the Nautical Almanac, based on observations made at the Observatory. 1833 Daily time signals began, marked by dropping a Time ball,1899 The New Physical Observatory was completed. 1924 Hourly time signals from the Royal Observatory were first broadcast on 5 February,1948 Office of the Astronomer Royal was moved to Herstmonceux. 1957 Royal Observatory completed its move to Herstmonceux, becoming the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the Greenwich site is renamed the Old Royal Observatory. Greenwich site is returned to its name, the Royal Observatory. The Ordnance Office was given responsibility for building the Observatory, with Moore providing the key instruments, Moore donated two clocks, built by Thomas Tompion, which were installed in the 20 foot high Octagon Room, the principal room of the building. They were of unusual design, each with a pendulum 13 feet in length mounted above the face, giving a period of four seconds. British astronomers have used the Royal Observatory as a basis for measurement. Four separate meridians have passed through the buildings, defined by successive instruments, subsequently, nations across the world used it as their standard for mapping and timekeeping. When the Airy circle became the reference for the meridian, the difference resulting from the change was considered enough to be neglected. When a new triangulation was done between 1936 and 1962, scientists determined that in the Ordnance Survey system the longitude of the international Greenwich meridian was not 0° and this old astronomical prime meridian has been replaced by a more precise prime meridian
35.
Paris Observatory
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The Paris Observatory is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centers in the world. Its historic building is to be found on the Left Bank of the Seine in central Paris, administratively, it is a grand établissement of the French Ministry of National Education, with a status close to that of a public university. Its missions include, research in astronomy and astrophysics, education, diffusion of knowledge to the public and it maintains a solar observatory at Meudon and a radio astronomy observatory at Nançay. It was also the home to the International Time Bureau until its dissolution in 1987 and its foundation lies in the ambitions of Jean-Baptiste Colbert to extend Frances maritime power and international trade in the 17th century. Louis XIV promoted its construction, which was started in 1667 and it thus predates by a few years the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England, which was founded in 1675. The architect of the Paris Observatory was Claude Perrault whose brother, Charles, was secretary to Colbert, optical instruments were supplied by Giuseppe Campani. The buildings were extended in 1730,1810,1834,1850, the last extension incorporates the spectacular Meridian Room designed by Jean Prouvé. The worlds first national almanac, the Connaissance des temps, was published by the observatory in 1679, in 1863, the observatory published the first modern weather maps. In 1882, a 33 cm astrographic lens was constructed, an instrument that catalysed what proved to be the over-ambitious international Carte du Ciel project. The Meudon great refractor was a 83 cm aperture refractor, which with September 20,1909 observations by E. M. Antoniadi helped disprove the Mars canals theory and it was a double telescope completed in 1891, with secondary having 62 cm aperture lens for photography. It was one of the largest active telescopes in Europe, the title of Director of the Observatory was officially given for the first time to César-François Cassini de Thury by a Royal brevet dated November 12,1771. However, the important role played by his grandfather and father in this institution during its first century actually gives them somewhat the role of director, a coronograph was in operation there for ten years, the dome was moved there from the Perrault building of the Observatoire de Paris. Nowadays, the AstroQueyras amateur astronomy association operates the facility, using a 60 cm telescope on loan from the Observatoire de Haute Provence, numerous asteroids have been discovered there. Paris Observatory, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Deluxe CDROM edition Aubin, D, the fading star of the Paris Observatory in the nineteenth century, astronomers urban culture of circulation and observation. History of the Bureau International de lHeure, polar Motion, Historical and Scientific problems. Paris Observatory Paris Observatory History Location in Paris Publications of the Observatoire de Paris in Gallica, the digital library of the BnF
36.
William Roy
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Major-General William Roy FRS, AS was a Scottish military engineer, surveyor, and antiquarian. He was an innovator who applied new scientific discoveries and newly emerging technologies to the accurate geodetic mapping of Great Britain and it was Roys advocacy and leadership that led to the creation of the Ordnance Survey in 1791, the year after his death. His technical work in the establishment of a surveying baseline won him the Copley Medal in 1785 and his maps and drawings of Roman archaeological sites in Scotland were the first accurate and systematic study of the subject, and have not been improved upon even today. Roy was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London, close The early years of the Ordnance Survey. Hewitt Map of a Nation, a biography of the Ordnance Survey, owen & Pilbeam Ordnance Survey, map makers to Britain since 1791. Seymour A History of the Ordnance Survey, porter History of the Corps of Royal Engineers. Roy was born at Milton Head in Carluke Parish in South Lanarkshire on 4 May 1726 and his father was a factor in the service of the Gordons/Hamiltons of Hallcraig, as well as an elder of the Kirk. His grandfather had held a position as factor, and his uncle acted in that capacity for the Lockharts of Lee. Thus Roy grew up in an environment where making land surveys and he was educated in the parish school and Lanark Grammar School. But there is no record of a further education such as that enjoyed by his younger brother James, the next few years of his life are poorly documented. Roy was certainly associated with the board by 1746, for he was the author of a map of Culloden made soon after the battle. Roy maintained his connections to his birthplace and the living there. A servant for the Lockharts of Lee recalled his visits there over time and she noted that at first he would dine in the servants hall, in later years he would dine with the family, and later still he would be seated at the right hand of the Laird. Eventually there were six teams conducting surveys by traverses of the country with the objects to the side of the line recorded by sketches and compass directions. The Highlands were covered by 1752, but the survey was extended to the lowlands for another three years, until 1755, when most of the surveyors were posted to war stations. In the introduction to the 1885 account of the measurement of the Hounslow baseline Roy writes that the map remained in an unfinished state, and is to be considered as a magnificent military sketch rather than a very accurate map of a country. It would have completed, and many of its imperfections no doubt remedied. It is now possible to view the map online, in the same year the engineers of the board were formed into the Corps of Engineers
37.
Cap Blanc Nez
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Cap Blanc Nez is a cape on the Côte dOpale, in the Pas-de-Calais département, in northern France. The cliffs of chalk are very similar to the cliffs of Dover at the other side of the Channel in England. Cap Blanc Nez was a measuring point for the eighteenth-century trigonometric survey linking the Paris Observatory with the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Sightings were made across the English Channel to Dover Castle and Fairlight Windmill on the South Downs and this Anglo-French Survey was led in England by General William Roy. Some miles away to the southwest of Cap Blanc Nez is the taller Cap Gris Nez
38.
Fairlight, East Sussex
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Fairlight is a village in East Sussex, England within Rother district, three miles to the east of Hastings. Fairlight is also the name of the parish forming part of the Rother district which includes the villages of Fairlight and Fairlight Cove. The village of Fairlight lies on a road between Ore, Pett and Winchelsea. St Andrews Church has a tower and beacon turret. The church is one of three in the United Benefice of Fairlight, Guestling and Pett, richard DOyly Carte, founder of the Savoy Theatre, Savoy Hotel, and DOyly Carte Opera Company, which produced the Gilbert and Sullivan light operas, is buried in the churchyard. So also are Thomas Attwood Walmisley, and Sir James Roberts of Saltaire, Fairlight Cove, the neighbouring settlement and part of the parish, suffered from coastal erosion and landslip at Rockmead Road and Sea Road. A number of houses there are close to the sea edge and, whilst enjoying spectacular views. The Fairlight Preservation Trust - a registered charity was set up with a view to combating the loss by erosion and more generally to enhance, Sea defences were built in the 90s at Sea Road and at Rockmead Road in 2007. The 2007 works are intended to be effective for 50 years from 2007, although the nearest railway station is Three Oaks, Hastings offers a much better service and can be reached by bus from Fairlight. Rye station is accessible by bus from Fairlight. Hastings Country Park stretches from Hastings to Cliff End, where it gives access to the beach and this is a favoured spot for fossil-hunters, the Hastings Beds are part of the Early Cretaceous Wealden Group, aged 140–136 million years. The park also gives access to the beach at Fairlight Glen, the highest point in Hastings, now named Norths Seat, is at the top of Fairlight Down in Hastings Country Park. It is named after Frederick North who represented the town, the country park is part of the larger Site of Special Scientific Interest called Hastings Cliffs to Pett Beach which extends into neighbouring parishes. The site is of geological and biological interest. Fairlight, East Sussex at DMOZ Fairlight Community Website
39.
Napoleonic Wars
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The wars resulted from the unresolved disputes associated with the French Revolution and the Revolutionary Wars, which had raged on for years before concluding with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Napoleon became the First Consul of France in 1799, then Emperor five years later, inheriting the political and military struggles of the Revolution, he created a state with stable finances, a strong central bureaucracy, and a well-trained army. The British frequently financed the European coalitions intended to thwart French ambitions, by 1805, they had managed to convince the Austrians and the Russians to wage another war against France. At sea, the Royal Navy destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in October 1805, Prussian worries about increasing French power led to the formation of the Fourth Coalition in 1806. France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July, although Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, it did not bring a lasting peace for Europe. Hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia, the Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, the Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia. Unwilling to bear the consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse and retreat of the Grand Army along with the destruction of Russian lands. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France, a lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814 and he was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again, the Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June. The Congress of Vienna, which started in 1814 and concluded in 1815, established the new borders of Europe and laid out the terms, Napoleon seized power in 1799, creating a de facto military dictatorship. The Napoleonic Wars began with the War of the Third Coalition, Kagan argues that Britain was irritated in particular by Napoleons assertion of control over Switzerland. Furthermore, Britons felt insulted when Napoleon stated that their country deserved no voice in European affairs, for its part, Russia decided that the intervention in Switzerland indicated that Napoleon was not looking toward a peaceful resolution of his differences with the other European powers. The British quickly enforced a blockade of France to starve it of resources. Napoleon responded with economic embargoes against Britain, and sought to eliminate Britains Continental allies to break the coalitions arrayed against him, the so-called Continental System formed a league of armed neutrality to disrupt the blockade and enforce free trade with France
40.
William Twiss
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General William Twiss, was a British Army Royal Engineer, responsible for the design of many military defences. Probably born in Kent in 1744 or 1755, Twiss worked in the office at the Tower of London from 1760. Receiving a commission in the army in 1763 and he returned to England in 1783. Over the following years, Twiss oversaw the construction of defences, including the chain of Martello Towers along the Kent. Twiss also accompanied the army on expeditions to the Netherlands, the Channel Islands, Twiss was made Major General in 1805, and in 1809 became colonel-commandant of Royal Engineers Corps. 1825 saw him made full general, after retiring, Twiss lived in Bingley, West Yorkshire. He died 14 March 1827, aged 82, and is buried in the church of All Saints, Twiss married Elizabeth Wood, in 1775. They had one daughter, Katherine Maria and he is commemorated in the naming of Twiss Road in Hythe, Kent. Early 19th Century Irish defences including Bere Island, Bantry Bay and Cork Harbour Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
41.
Bastion
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A bastion is an angular structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly at the corners. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks with fire from the flanks being able to protect the wall and also the adjacent bastions. It is one element in the style of fortification dominant from the mid 16th to mid 19th centuries, Bastion fortifications offered a greater degree of passive resistance and more scope for ranged defense in the age of gunpowder artillery compared with the medieval fortifications they replaced. By the middle of the 15th century, artillery pieces had become powerful enough to make the traditional medieval round tower, during the Eighty Years War Dutch military engineers developed the concepts further lengthening the faces and shortening the curtain walls of the bastions. To augment this change they placed v shaped outworks in front of the bastions, Bastions differ from medieval towers in a number of respects. Bastions are lower than towers and are normally of similar height to the adjacent curtain wall, the height of towers, although making them difficult to scale, also made them easy for artillery to destroy. A bastion would normally have a ditch in front, the side of which would be built up above the natural level then slope away gradually. This glacis shielded most of the bastion from the cannon while the distance from the base of the ditch to the top of the bastion meant it was still difficult to scale. In contrast to late medieval towers, bastions were flat sided rather than curved. This eliminated dead ground making it possible for the defenders to fire upon any point directly in front of the bastion, Bastions also cover a larger area than most towers. This allows more cannons to be mounted and provided space for the crews to operate them. Surviving examples of bastions are usually faced with masonry, unlike the wall of a tower this was just a retaining wall, cannonball were expected to pass through this and be absorbed by a greater thickness of hard-packed earth or rubble behind. The top of the bastion was exposed to fire. If a bastion was successfully stormed, it could provide the attackers with a stronghold from which to further attacks. Some bastion designs attempted to minimise this problem and this could be achieved by the use of retrenchments in which a trench was dug across the rear of the bastion, isolating it from the main rampart. Various kinds of bastions have been used throughout history, solid bastions are those that are filled up entirely, and have the ground even with the height of the rampart, without any empty space towards the centre. Void or hollow bastions are those that have a rampart, or parapet, only around their flanks and faces, so that a void space is left towards the centre. The ground is so low, that if the rampart is taken, no retrenchment can be made in the centre, but what will lie under the fire of the besieged
42.
Redan
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Redan is a term related to fortifications. It is a work in a V-shaped salient angle toward an expected attack and it can be made from earthworks or other material. The redan developed from the lunette, originally a half-moon-shaped outwork, redans were a common feature in the coastal batteries built in Malta between 1715 and the end of the 18th century. Surviving batteries with redans include Mistra Battery and Saint Anthonys Battery, the Russians used redans on their left at the Battle of Borodino against Napoleon. A small redan whose faces make an angle with a vertex toward the enemy is called a flèche. The Bagration flèches were three redans backwards in echelon, the Shevardino Redoubt was erected as an early warning post a mile in front of the Bagration flèches. A Redan hole or Redan is an aspect of golf course architecture commonly associated with golf architect Charles B, the term alludes to the Redan type of fortification. Specifically, a Redan hole has a green which slopes downward and away from the point of entrance, typically the front right portion of the green. Links golf is played on the ground as much as in the air and, consequently, the green slopes away from the golfer playing to the green from the tee or fairway. Thus, it is played in an indirect manner, that is. This definition serves well to explain the basic concept, macdonald built his original American Redan as the fourth hole at the National Golf Links of America, commonly known as NGLA. He and his cohorts, Seth Raynor and Charles Steamshovel Banks built a Redan or a reverse version of it at nearly every course that they constructed. It is an element that has been copied by modern architects frequently - most notably the husband wife team of Pete and Alice Dye. The design element can be used as a complex of any par hole - a par 3 most commonly. Many Redan holes are flanked by a variety of deep bunkers, the original Redan is the 15th hole on the West Links of North Berwick. Redan holes in which the green is visible from the tee can produce a particular excitement for the golfer as the ball tracks its way to the hole, at the original Redan design in North Berwick, Scotland, the green is invisible from the tee. The NGLA version, more the inspiration for modern copies than the original hole, many golf architecture connoisseurs feel that the NGLA hole is the perhaps the greatest example of this design, exceeding the original. The name Redan in golf comes from the Crimean War, when the British captured a Russian-held fort, a serving officer—John White-Melville—is credited on his return as describing the 6th like the formidable fortress, or redan, he had encountered at Sebastopol
43.
Garrison
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Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base. The garrison is usually in a city, town, fort, castle, garrison town is a common expression for any town that has a military base nearby. Garrison towns were used during the Arab Islamic conquests of Middle Eastern lands by Arab-Muslim armies to increase their dominance over indigenous populations. In Ireland, Association football has historically been termed the game or the garrison sport for its connections with British military serving in Irish cities. In Israel, a unit is a regular unit defending a specified Israeli zone in need of protection from attack from combatants. Israeli garrison units placed in the territories of West Bank are recognized under UN Resolution 242 as occupied pending peaceful recognition by all regional combatants. It was an old custom in ancient Italy to send out colonies for the purpose of securing new conquests, the Romans, having no standing army, used to plant bodies of their own citizens in conquered towns as a kind of garrison
44.
Royal Engineers
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The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers, and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. It is highly regarded throughout the military, and especially the Army and it provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is headed by the Chief Royal Engineer. The Regimental Headquarters and the Royal School of Military Engineering are in Chatham in Kent, the corps is divided into several regiments, barracked at various places in the United Kingdom and around the world. In Woolwich in 1716, the Board formed the Royal Regiment of Artillery and established a Corps of Engineers, the manual work was done by the Artificer Companies, made up of contracted civilian artisans and labourers. In 1782, a Soldier Artificer Company was established for service in Gibraltar, ten years later the Gibraltar company, which had remained separate, was absorbed and in 1812 the name was changed to the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners. The Corps has no battle honours, in 1832, the regimental motto, Ubique Quo Fas Et Gloria Ducunt, was granted. The motto signified that the Corps had seen action in all the conflicts of the British Army. In 1911 the Corps formed its Air Battalion, the first flying unit of the British Armed Forces, the Air Battalion was the forerunner of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force. In 1915, in response to German mining of British trenches under the then static siege conditions of the First World War, before the Second World War, Royal Engineers recruits were required to be at least 5 feet 4 inches tall. They initially enlisted for six years with the colours and a six years with the reserve or four years. Unlike most corps and regiments, in which the age limit was 25. They trained at the Royal Engineers Depot in Chatham or the RE Mounted Depot at Aldershot, the Royal Engineers Museum is in Gillingham in Kent. Britain having acquired an Empire, it fell to the Royal Engineers to conduct some of the most significant civil engineering schemes around the world, some examples of great works of the era of empire can be found in A. J. Smitherss book Honourable Conquests. The Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, commanded by Richard Clement Moody, was responsible for the foundation, the Royal Albert Hall is one of the UKs most treasured and distinctive buildings, recognisable the world over. Since its opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the leading artists from every kind of performance genre have appeared on its stage. The Hall was designed by Captain Francis Fowke and Major-General Henry Y. D. Scott of the Royal Engineers, the designers were heavily influenced by ancient amphitheatres, but had also been exposed to the ideas of Gottfried Semper while he was working at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Much of the British colonial era infrastructure of India, of which survive today, was created by engineers of the three presidencies armies and the Royal Engineers. In 1838 he designed and built sea defences for Vizagapatam and he masterminded the Godavery Delta project where 720,000 acres of land were irrigated and 500 miles of land to the port of Cocanada was made navigable in the 1840s
45.
Barracks
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A barrack or barracks is a building or group of buildings built to house soldiers. The word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes, the main object of barracks is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training, and esprit de corps. They have been called discipline factories for soldiers, Early barracks such as those of the Roman Praetorian Guard were built to maintain elite forces. There are a number of remains of Roman army barracks in frontier forts such as Vercovicium, from these and from contemporary Roman sources we can see that the basics of life in a military camp have remained constant for thousands of years. Large, permanent barracks were developed in the 18th century by the two dominant states of the period, France the caserne and Spain the cuartel. The English term ‘barrack’, on the hand, derives from the Spanish word for a temporary shelter erected by soldiers on campaign. Early barracks were multi-story blocks, often grouped in a quadrangle around a courtyard or parade ground, a good example is Berwick Barracks, which was among the first in England to be purpose-built and begun in 1717 to the design of the distinguished architect Nicholas Hawksmoor. The pavilion plan concept of design was influential in barrack planning after the Crimean War. The first large-scale training camps were built in the Kingdom of France, the British Army built Aldershot camps from 1854. By the First World War, infantry, artillery, and cavalry regiments had separate barracks and these were inadequate for the enormous armies mobilized after 1914. Hut camps were developed using variations of the eponymous Nissen hut, in many military forces, NCOs and enlisted personnel will frequently be housed in barracks for service or training. Junior enlisted and sometimes junior NCOs will often receive less space and may be housed in bays, while senior NCOs, the term Garrison town is a common expression for any town that has military barracks, i. e. a permanent military presence nearby. Barracks blockhouses were used to house troops in forts in Upper Canada, the Stone Frigate, completed in 1820, served as barracks briefly in 1837–38, and was refitted as a dormitory and classrooms to house the Royal Military College of Canada by 1876. The Stone frigate is a stone building originally designed to hold gear. The majority of the Portuguese Army bases is referred as a quartel, in a barracks, each of the dormitory buildings is referred as a caserna. Most of them are regimental barracks, constituting the fixed component of the Army system of forces and being responsible for the training, sustenance, in addition to the regimental administrative, logistic and training bodies, each barracks can lodge one or more operational units. Many of the Portuguese regimental barracks are of the CANIFA model, the CANIFA barracks were designed to lodge 1,000 or more soldiers. Nevertheless, some soldiers lodgings were built in Britain at this time, the first recorded use of the word barracks in this context was for the Irish Barracks, built in the precinct of the Tower of London in 1669
46.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
47.
War of 1812
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Historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right, but the British often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. By the wars end in early 1815, the key issues had been resolved, the view was shared in much of New England and for that reason the war was widely referred to there as Mr. Madison’s War. As a result, the primary British war goal was to defend their North American colonies, the war was fought in three theatres. Second, land and naval battles were fought on the U. S. –Canadian frontier, Third, large-scale battles were fought in the Southern United States and Gulf Coast. With the majority of its land and naval forces tied down in Europe fighting the Napoleonic Wars, early victories over poorly-led U. S. armies demonstrated that the conquest of the Canadas would prove more difficult than anticipated. Despite this, the U. S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britains Native American allies, both governments were eager for a return to normality and peace negotiations began in Ghent in August 1814. This brought an Era of Good Feelings in which partisan animosity nearly vanished in the face of strengthened American nationalism, the war was also a major turning point in the development of the U. S. military, with militia being increasingly replaced by a more professional force. The U. S. also acquired permanent ownership of Spains Mobile District, the government of Canada declared a three-year commemoration of the War of 1812 in 2012, intended to offer historical lessons and celebrate 200 years of peace across the border. At the conclusion of the commemorations in 2014, a new national War of 1812 Monument was unveiled in Ottawa. The war is remembered in Britain primarily as a footnote in the much larger Napoleonic Wars occurring in Europe, historians have long debated the relative weight of the multiple reasons underlying the origins of the War of 1812. This section summarizes several contributing factors which resulted in the declaration of war by the United States, as Risjord notes, a powerful motivation for the Americans was the desire to uphold national honour in the face of what they considered to be British insults such as the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair. The approaching conflict was about violations of American rights, but it was also vindication of American identity. Americans at the time and historians since often called it the United States Second War of Independence, in 1807, Britain introduced a series of trade restrictions via a series of Orders in Council to impede neutral trade with France, with which Britain was at war. The United States contested these restrictions as illegal under international law, the American merchant marine had come close to doubling between 1802 and 1810, making it by far the largest neutral fleet. Britain was the largest trading partner, receiving 80% of U. S. cotton, the British public and press were resentful of the growing mercantile and commercial competition. The United States view was that Britains restrictions violated its right to trade with others, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy expanded to 176 ships of the line and 600 ships overall, requiring 140,000 sailors to man. The United States believed that British deserters had a right to become U. S. citizens and this meant that in addition to recovering naval deserters, it considered any United States citizens who were born British liable for impressment. Aggravating the situation was the reluctance of the United States to issue formal naturalization papers and it was estimated by the Admiralty that there were 11,000 naturalized sailors on United States ships in 1805
48.
Ordnance Board
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The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London, the Board also maintained and directed the Artillery and Engineer corps, which it founded in the eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, the Board of Ordnance was second in only to HM Treasury among government departments. The Board lasted until 1855, at which point it was disbanded, the introduction of gunpowder to Europe led to innovations in offensive weapons, such as cannon, and defences, such as fortifications. From the 1320s a member of the Royal Household, the Keeper of the Privy Wardrobe in the Tower of London, became responsible for the procurement, storage. His office and main arsenal were located in the White Tower and this Privy Wardrobe in the Tower grew, both in size and significance, after the start of the Hundred Years War. In the following century, the influence of the Privy Wardrobe and its staff receded, a distinct Office of Ordnance began to establish itself at the Tower, staffed in the 1460s by a Master, a Clerk and a Yeoman. In the 1540s, under Henry VIII, the Ordnance Office was expanded, new officers were appointed and their principal duties clarified. In 1671, the Ordnance Office took over the work of the Office of Armoury at the Tower, at this time the Ordnance Office began to take on oversight of the nations forts and fortifications. In 1683, by now known as the Board of Ordnance. These detailed Instructions continued, with little change, to provide the working framework for the Board. From the mid-16th century onwards, the Board of Ordnance had six principal officers, merbury was present at the Siege of Harfleur and at the Battle of Agincourt. By 1450 Master of Ordnance was a permanent appointment, firmly based at the Tower of London, until 1544 the Master had generally managed the day-to-day activities of the Ordnance Office. Thereafter the Lieutenant had day-to-day oversight of the Boards activities, while Master had more the role of a statesman, from the seventeenth century through till 1828 the Master-General routinely had a seat in Cabinet, and thus served as de facto principal military adviser to the government. Some of the most illustrious soldiers of their generation served as Master-General, Marlborough, Cadogan, Cornwallis, Hastings, Wellington, from its earliest years, the Ordnance Office was staffed by a large number of Clerks to manage its substantial administrative functions. A number of officials reported to the board, including furbishers, proofmasters, keepers and fireworkers. Two appointments stand out, as they were appointed by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm, namely the Master Gunner of England and these were the senior technicians on the staff. The Treasurer of the Ordnance was another important officer of the department and this office was instituted in 1670, the post was consolidated with several others in 1836 to form that of Paymaster-General
49.
Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs
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HMRC was formed by the merger of the Inland Revenue and Her Majestys Customs and Excise which took effect on 18 April 2005. The departments logo is the St Edwards Crown enclosed within a circle, responsibility for the protection of the UKs borders passed to UK Visas and Immigration of the UK Border Agency within the Home Office on 1 April 2008 and then to UK Visas and Immigration in 2013. This includes all of the previous HMCE criminal work such as Tobacco Alcohol and they have aligned their previous Customs and Excise powers to tackle previous Inland Revenue criminal offences. They are responsible for seizing billions of pounds of HMGs revenue. Their skills and resources include the range of intrusive and covert surveillance. HMRC inland detection officers have wide-ranging powers of arrest, entry, search, the main power is to detain anyone who has committed, or whom the officer has reasonable grounds to suspect has committed, any offence under the Customs and Excise Acts. HMRC is also listed under parts of the British Government which contribute to intelligence collection, analysis and their prosecution cases may be coordinated with the Police or the Crown Prosecution Service. The department is organised around four groups, each led by a director general. The next 8,400 business are dealt with via Customer Co-ordinators who provide a point of contact with HMRC. The merger of the Inland Revenue and HM Customs & Excise was announced by then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in the Budget on 17 March 2004, the name for the new department and its first executive chairman, David Varney, were announced on 9 May 2004. The Act also creates a Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office responsible for the prosecution of all Revenue, the old Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise departments had very different historical bases, internal cultures and legal powers. The merger was described by the Financial Times on 9 July 2004, legislation to introduce new information and inspection powers was included in Finance Act 2008. The new consolidated penalty regime was introduced via Finance Act 2007, in addition,2,500 staff would be redeployed to front-line activities. Estimates suggested this may save around £300 million in staff costs, in addition, certain investigatory functions moved to the new Serious Organised Crime Agency, as well as prosecutions moving to the new Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office. A further programme of job cuts and office closures was announced on 16 November 2006, whilst some of the offices closed will be in bigger cities where other offices already exist, many will be in local, rural areas, where there is no other HMRC presence. In May 2009, staff morale in HMRC was the lowest of 11 government departments surveyed. In 2013, HMRC began to introduce an update to the PAYE system, a trial of the new system began in April 2012, and all employers switched by October 2013. In 2012 Revenue Scotland was formed and on 1 April 2015 it took HMRC responsibility to collect Stamp Duty Land Tax, on 12 November 2015 HMRC proposed to close 137 local offices and replace them with 13 regional centres by 2027
