1.
History of the British Isles
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Today, the British Isles contain two sovereign states, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. There are also three Crown dependencies, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom comprises England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, each country having its own history, with all but Northern Ireland having been independent states at one point. The history of the formation of the United Kingdom is very complex, additionally, since the independence of most of Ireland, historians of the region often avoid the term British Isles due to the complexity of relations between the peoples of the archipelago. The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, also known as the Old and Middle Stone Ages, were characterised by a hunter-gatherer economy, the Lower Palaeolithic period in the British Isles saw the regions first known habitation by early hominids, specifically the extinct Homo heidelbergensis. One of the most prominent archaeological sites dating to this period is that of Boxgrove Quarry in West Sussex, by the Mesolithic, Homo sapiens, or modern humans, were the only hominid species to still survive in the British Isles. British Isles were linked to continental Europe by a territory named Doggerland, in the British Isles, the Neolithic and Bronze Ages saw the transformation of British and Irish society and landscape. It saw the adoption of agriculture, as communities gave up their hunter-gatherer modes of existence to begin farming. As its name suggests, the British Iron Age is also characterised by the adoption of iron, in the course of the first millennium BC, immigration from continental Europe resulted in the establishment of Celtic languages in the islands, eventually giving rise to the Insular Celtic group. What languages were spoken in the islands before is unknown, though they are assumed to have been Pre-Indo-European, in and around the same time period, Ireland was being invaded and settled by Gaels. The Early medieval period saw a series of invasions of Britain by the Germanic-speaking Saxons, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were formed and, through wars with British states, gradually came to cover the territory of present-day England. Around 600, seven kingdoms had emerged, beginning the so-called period of the Heptarchy. During that period, the Anglo-Saxon states were Christianised, in the 9th century, Vikings from Denmark and Norway conquered most of England. Danish rule was overthrown and the local House of Wessex was restored to power under Edward the Confessor for about two decades until his death in 1066. In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy said he was the heir to the English throne, invaded England. The Late Medieval period was characterised by many battles between England and France, coming to a head in the Hundred Years War from which France emerged victorious, the monarchs throughout the Late Medieval period belonged to the houses of Plantaganet, Lancaster and York. The Kingdom of Ireland was a state, the monarch was the incumbent monarch of England. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland headed the government on behalf of the monarch and he was assisted by the Chief Secretary of Ireland. Both were responsible to the government in London rather than to the Parliament of Ireland, before the Constitution of 1782, the Irish parliament was also severely fettered, and decisions in Irish courts could be overturned on appeal to the British House of Lords in London
2.
History of the United Kingdom
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The history of the United Kingdom as a unified sovereign state began in 1707 with the political union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, into a united kingdom called Great Britain. Of this new state the historian Simon Schama said What began as a merger would end in a full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world. It was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history, a further Act of Union in 1800 added the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The first decades were marked by Jacobite risings which ended with defeat for the Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746. In 1763, victory in the Seven Years War led to the dominance of the British Empire, as a result, the culture of the United Kingdom, and its industrial, political, constitutional, educational and linguistic influence, became worldwide. In 1922, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty, most of Ireland seceded to become the Irish Free State, a day later, Northern Ireland seceded from the Free State and returned to the United Kingdom. As a result, in 1927 the United Kingdom changed its title to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, usually shortened to Britain. In the Second World War, in which the Soviet Union, Nationalist China, the cost was high and Britain no longer had the wealth to maintain an empire, so it granted independence to most of the Empire. The new states joined the Commonwealth of Nations. The United Kingdom has sought to be a member of the United Nations. Since the 1990s, however, large-scale devolution movements in Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Kingdom of Great Britain came into being on 1 May 1707, as a result of the political union of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. The terms of the union had been negotiated the previous year, the parliaments of Scotland and of England then each ratified the treaty via respective Acts of Union. Slightly more than one-hundred years later, the Treaty of Union enabled the two kingdoms to be combined into a kingdom, merging the two parliaments into a single parliament of Great Britain. Queen Anne, who was reigning at the time of the union, had favoured deeper political integration between the two kingdoms and became the first monarch of Great Britain. Although now a single kingdom, certain aspects of the independent kingdoms remained separate. Scottish and English law remained separate, as did the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, England and Scotland also continued to each have its own system of education. The creation of Great Britain happened during the War of the Spanish Succession and his successor, Anne, continued the war. The Duke of Marlborough won a series of brilliant victories over the French, France was nearly brought to its knees by 1709, when King Louis XIV made a desperate appeal to the French people
3.
History of England
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England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of flint tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk has revealed. The earliest evidence for modern humans in North West Europe. Continuous human habitation in England dates to around 13,000 years ago, the region has numerous remains from the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age, such as Stonehenge and Avebury. In the Iron Age, England, like all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was inhabited by the Celtic people known as the Britons, including some Belgic tribes in the south east. In AD43 the Roman conquest of Britain began, the Romans maintained control of their province of Britannia until the early 5th century. The end of Roman rule in Britain facilitated the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, the Anglo-Saxons, a collection of various Germanic peoples, established several kingdoms that became the primary powers in present-day England and parts of southern Scotland. They introduced the Old English language, which displaced the previous British language. The Anglo-Saxons warred with British successor states in Wales, Cornwall, raids by Vikings became frequent after about AD800, and the Norsemen settled in large parts of what is now England. During this period, several attempted to unite the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In 1066, a Norman expedition invaded and conquered England, the Norman Dynasty established by William the Conqueror ruled England for over half a century before the period of succession crisis known as the Anarchy. Following the Anarchy, England came under the rule of the House of Plantagenet, a succession crisis in France led to the Hundred Years War, a series of conflicts involving the peoples of both nations. Following the Hundred Years Wars, England became embroiled in its own succession wars, the Wars of the Roses pitted two branches of the House of Plantagenet against one another, the House of York and the House of Lancaster. The Lancastrian Henry Tudor ended the War of the Roses and established the Tudor dynasty in 1485, under the Tudors and the later Stuart dynasty, England became a colonial power. The Stuarts returned to the throne in 1660, though continued questions over religion and power resulted in the deposition of another Stuart king, James II. England, which had conquered Wales in the 13th century, united with Scotland in 1707 to form a new state called Great Britain. Following the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain ruled a colonial Empire, however, as of 2017, its cultural impact remains widespread and deep in many of them. The time from Britains first inhabitation until the last glacial maximum is known as the Old Stone Age and this earliest evidence, from Happisburgh in Norfolk, includes the oldest human footprints found outside Africa and points to dates of more than 800,000 BP. These earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, who survived by hunting game, the last Ice Age ended around 10,000 BC, and England has been inhabited ever since
4.
History of the Isle of Wight
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The River Solent was the largest tributary of the Channel River that drained the Hampshire Basin from the Early Pleistocene or late Pliocene. During the Mesolithic period, sea levels in northern Europe were some 30 to 40 metres lower than today, and the land that became Britain was a peninsula of northern Europe. This flooded the river valley of the Solent to the north, and the future English Channel to the south. Once open to the sea, tidal scouring widened the Solent, the first inhabitants are assumed to have been hunter-gatherers migrating by land during the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age period, as the ice age began to recede and the climate improved. The island has no visible Paleolithic or Mesolithic sites, but flints from these periods have found and are on display at Carisbrooke Castle. The Longstone near Mottistone is one of the three surviving Neolithic sites, along with a long barrow on Afton Down and a mortuary enclosure on Tennyson Down. Between the Neolithic and Roman eras, Southeastern Britain experienced significant in migration from the continent, finds of late Late Iron Age coins, such as the South Wight and Shalfleet Hoards, suggest trading links both with nearby tribes and further afield. The coins and ingots from these hoards had been defaced before burial, for reasons that are unknown, the variety of origin of the coins found locally is more marked than elsewhere in Britain and suggests that the island may have had a degree of political separation. The island has over 240 bronze age burial mounds or round barrows, one plough-damaged barrow on Gallibury Down was excavated during 1979-80 and dated to between 1600-1400 BCE. There is also evidence from aerial photographs of ring ditches on the limestone near Bembridge, the only significant Iron Age find is at Chillerton Down, where there was a hill fort. However three of the Roman villa sites have produced late Iron Age pottery, which suggests a continuity of occupation. Bronze Age Britain had large reserves of tin in Cornwall and Devon, at that time the sea level was much lower, and so tin for export could be brought across the Solent at low tide on carts, or possibly on boats such as those found at Ferriby. A shortage of tin during the Bronze Age collapse and trade disruptions in the Mediterranean around 1300 BCE may have forced metalworkers to seek an alternative to bronze. A century later, Pliny the Elder uses its Latin name Vectis, the form Vectis seems reasonably robust but Rivet and Smith were uncertain of its etymology. A gloss on an 1164 manuscript of Nennius equates Old English wiht with Latin divorcium, the word could be Brittonic, from a Celtic root akin to Irish fecht journey and Welsh gwaith work. The Romans occupied southern Britain, including the Isle of Wight, the Romans built no towns or roads on the island, but it became an agricultural centre, and at least seven Roman villas are known. The Roman villas at Newport and Brading have been excavated and are open to the public, at Brading Villa a field system can be seen near Brading Down, the remains associated with the villa can be seen as low banks. The chalk downland was cultivated in prehistoric and Roman times because the light chalk soil was not too difficult to plough
5.
Isles of Scilly
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The Isles of Scilly are an archipelago off the south western tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. It is the southernmost location in England and the United Kingdom, the population of all the islands at the 2011 census was 2,203. Scilly forms part of the county of Cornwall, and some services are combined with those of Cornwall. However, since 1890, the islands have had a local authority. Since the passing of the Isles of Scilly Order 1930, this authority has had the status of a county council, the adjective Scillonian is sometimes used for people or things related to the archipelago. The Duchy of Cornwall owns most of the land on the islands. Tourism is a part of the local economy, along with agriculture — particularly the production of cut flowers. Scilly has been inhabited since the Stone Age, and until the early 20th century its history had been one of subsistence living, farming and fishing continue, but the main industry now is tourism. The islands may correspond to the Cassiterides visited by the Phoenicians, however, the archipelago itself does not contain much tin—it may be that the islands were used as a staging post. It is likely that until recent times the islands were much larger. The word Ennor is a contraction of the Old Cornish En Noer, remains of a prehistoric farm have been found on Nornour, which is now a small rocky skerry far too small for farming. There once was an Iron Age Britain community here that extended into Roman times and this community was likely formed by immigrants from Brittany, probably the Veneti who were active in the tin trade that originated in mining activity in Cornwall and Devon. At certain low tides the sea becomes shallow enough for people to walk between some of the islands and this is possibly one of the sources for stories of drowned lands, e. g. Lyonesse. Ancient field walls are visible below the tide line off some of the islands. Some of the Cornish language place names appear to reflect past shorelines. The whole of southern England has been sinking in opposition to post-glacial rebound in Scotland, this has caused the rias on the southern Cornish coast, e. g. River Fal. Scilly has been identified as the place of exile of two heretical 4th century bishops, Instantius and Tiberianus, who were followers of Priscillian, in 995, Olaf Tryggvason became King Olaf I of Norway. 960, Olaf had raided various European cities and fought in several wars, in 986 he met a Christian seer on the Isles of Scilly
6.
History of Scotland
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The History of Scotland is known to have begun by the end of the last glacial period, roughly 10,000 years ago. Prehistoric Scotland entered the Neolithic Era about 4000 BC, the Bronze Age about 2000 BC, and the Iron Age around 700 BC. Scotlands recorded history began with the arrival of the Roman Empire in the 1st century, North of this was Caledonia, whose people were known in Latin as Picti, the painted ones. Constant risings forced Romes legions back, Hadrians Wall attempted to seal off the Roman south, the latter was swiftly abandoned and the former overrun, most spectacularly during the Great Conspiracy of the 360s. As Rome finally withdrew from Britain, Gaelic raiders called the Scoti began colonizing Western Scotland, according to 9th- and 10th-century sources, the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata was founded on the west coast of Scotland in the 6th century. In the following century, the Irish missionary Columba founded a monastery on Iona and introduced the previously pagan Scoti, towards the end of the 8th century, the Viking invasions began. Successive defeats by the Norse forced the Picts and Gaels to cease their hostility to each other and to unite in the 9th century. The Kingdom of Scotland was united under the descendants of Kenneth MacAlpin and his descendants, known to modern historians as the House of Alpin, fought among each other during frequent disputed successions. England, under Edward I, would take advantage of the succession in Scotland to launch a series of conquests into Scotland. The resulting Wars of Scottish Independence were fought in the late 13th and early 14th centuries as Scotland passed back, Scotlands ultimate victory in the Wars of Independence under David II confirmed Scotland as a fully independent and sovereign kingdom. When David II died without issue, his nephew Robert II established the House of Stewart, ruling until 1714, Queen Anne was the last Stuart monarch. Since 1714, the succession of the British monarchs of the houses of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha has been due to their descent from James VI, during the Scottish Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, Scotland became one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Later, its decline following the Second World War was particularly acute. In recent decades Scotland has enjoyed something of a cultural and economic renaissance, fuelled in part by a resurgent financial services sector and the proceeds of North Sea oil and gas. Since the 1950s, nationalism has become a political topic, with serious debates on Scottish independence. People lived in Scotland for at least 8,500 years before Britains recorded history, glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and only after the ice retreated did Scotland again become habitable, around 9600 BC. Mesolithic hunter-gatherer encampments formed the first known settlements, and archaeologists have dated an encampment near Biggar to around 8500 BC, numerous other sites found around Scotland build up a picture of highly mobile boat-using people making tools from bone, stone and antlers. The oldest house for which there is evidence in Britain is the structure of wooden posts found at South Queensferry near the Firth of Forth, dating from the Mesolithic period
7.
History of Shetland
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The History of Shetland concerns the subarctic archipelago of Shetland in Scotland. A midden site at West Voe on the south coast of Mainland, the same site provides dates for early Neolithic activity and finds at Scourd of Brouster in Walls have been dated to 3400 BC. Shetland knives are tools that date from this period made from felsite from Northmavine. Shetland was colonised by Norsemen in the 9th century, the fate of the indigenous population being uncertain. The colonisers gave it that name and established their laws and language and that language evolved into the West Nordic language Norn, which survived into the 19th century. After Harald Finehair took control of all Norway, many of his opponents fled, some to Orkney, from the Northern Isles they continued to raid Scotland and Norway, prompting Harald Hårfagre to raise a large fleet which he sailed to the islands. In about 875 he and his forces took control of Shetland, ragnvald, Earl of Møre received Orkney and Shetland as an earldom from the king as reparation for his sons being killed in battle in Scotland. Ragnvald gave the earldom to his brother Sigurd the Mighty, Shetland was Christianised in the 10th century. Their pretender king was Olavs young foster son Sigurd, son of king Magnus Erlingsson, the eyjarskeggjar were beaten in the Battle of Florvåg near Bergen. In 1195 the earl sailed to Norway to reconcile with King Sverre, as a punishment the king placed the earldom of Shetland under the direct rule of the king, from which it was probably never returned. When Alexander III of Scotland turned twenty-one in 1262 and became of age he declared his intention of continuing the aggressive policy his father had begun towards the western and northern isles and this had been put on hold when his father had died thirteen years earlier. Alexander sent a demand to the Norwegian King Håkon Håkonsson. After decades of war, Norway had achieved stability and grown to be a substantial nation with influence in Europe. With this as a background, King Håkon rejected all demands from the Scots, the Norwegians regarded all the islands in the North Sea as part of the Norwegian realm. To add weight to his answer, King Håkon activated the leidang, the fleet met up in Breideyarsund in Shetland before the king and his men sailed for Scotland and made landfall on Arran. The aim was to conduct negotiations with the army as a backup, Alexander III drew out the negotiations while he patiently waited for the autumn storms to set in. Finally, after diplomatic talks, King Håkon lost his patience. At the same time a storm set in which destroyed several of his ships
8.
History of Orkney
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The known history of Orkney spans over 8,800 years, dating to Mesolithic times. Much of the history is dominated by the Vikings, who used the islands as a base for their raids. In the late 14th century, the archipelago associated with the Kingdom of Scotland. As with Prehistoric Scotland generally, the arrival of hunter gatherers in Orkney had to await the slow retreat of the ice age glaciation, however the rapid spread of Neolithic culture up the western seaways brought early farming settlements and Megalithic culture. Prevalent use of the sandstone which appears on the shore ready split into convenient building slabs has assisted with the preservation of numerous structures from this period. Finely made and decorated Unstan ware pottery links the inhabitants to chambered cairn tombs nearby, similar houses at Skara Brae on the Mainland are grouped into a village linked by low passageways, and date from about 3000 BC to 2500 BC. Pottery found here is of the grooved ware style which was found at the Standing Stones of Stenness, the nearby Ring of Brodgar circle of standing stones was one of the first to be analysed by Professor Alexander Thom to establish the likely use of standing stones as astronomical observatories. Another Neolithic village has found in the vicinity at Barnhouse Settlement. In many cases the brochs also had elaborate ditch and rampart circumferential defences, both Burroughston Broch and the Broch of Gurness have interesting guard chambers within their thick drystone walls to monitor the single entrance passages. The Iron Age brought impressive Brochs or round towers, and weems or underground houses, little is known of the culture and language of the early inhabitants. Only two languages are attested in pre-Norse Orkney, those being Old Gaelic and Latin, the Romans were aware of the Orkney Islands, which they called Orcades, thought to be Brythonic Celtic name. A king of the Orcades was one of the 11 rulers said to have paid tribute to Claudius following his invasion of Britain in AD43, 4th and 5th century sources place a Roman province over the islands. There is, however, only evidence that they traded directly or indirectly with the inhabitants. In the wake of the Scots incursionists followed the Celtic missionaries about 565, Vikings having made the islands the headquarters of their buccaneering expeditions, Harold Hårfagre subdued the rovers in 875 and annexed both Orkney and Shetland to Norway. They remained under the rule of Norwegian earls until 1231, when the line of the jarls became extinct, in that year the earldom of Caithness was granted to Magnus, second son of the Earl of Angus, whom the king of Norway apparently confirmed in the title. The last battle to take place on Orkney soil—the Battle of Summerdale—was fought in 1529, the islands were the rendezvous of the Marquess of Montroses expedition in 1650 which culminated in his imprisonment and death. During the Protectorate they were visited by a detachment of Oliver Cromwells troops, readers of Scotts Pirate will remember the frank contempt which Magnus Troil expressed for the Scots, and his opinions probably accurately reflected the general Norse feeling on the subject. Thus the udal succession and mode of land tenure lingered to some extent, most ships were salvaged, but the remaining wrecks are now a favoured haunt of recreational divers
9.
Inner Hebrides
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The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which experience a mild oceanic climate, the Inner Hebrides comprise 35 inhabited islands as well as 44 uninhabited islands with an area greater than 30 hectares. The main commercial activities are tourism, crofting, fishing and whisky distilling, in modern times the Inner Hebrides have formed part of two separate local government jurisdictions, one to the north and the other to the south. Together, the islands have an area of about 4,130 km2, the population density is therefore about 4.6 per km2. There are various important prehistoric structures, many of which pre-date the first written references to the islands by Roman, control of the islands was then held by various clan chiefs, principally the MacLeans, MacLeods and MacDonalds. The Highland Clearances of the 19th century had an effect on many communities. Sea transport is crucial and a variety of services operate to mainland Scotland. The Gaelic language remains strong in areas, the landscapes have inspired a variety of artists. The islands form a disparate archipelago, the largest islands are, from south to north, Islay, Jura, Mull, Rùm and Skye. Skye is the largest and most populous of all with an area of 1,656 km2, the southern group are in Argyll, an area roughly corresponding with the heartlands of the ancient kingdom of Dál Riata and incorporated into the modern unitary council area of Argyll and Bute. The northern islands were part of the county of Inverness-shire and are now in the Highland Council area, the ten largest islands are as follows. The geology and geomorphology of the islands is varied, some, such as Skye and Mull, are mountainous, whilst others like Tiree are relatively low-lying. The highest mountains are the Cuillins of Skye, although peaks over 300 metres are common elsewhere, much of the coastline is machair, a fertile low-lying dune pastureland. Many of the islands are swept by strong tides, and the Corryvreckan tide race between Scarba and Jura is one of the largest whirlpools in the world. There are various smaller archipelagoes including the Ascrib Islands, Crowlin Islands, Slate Islands, Small Isles, Summer Isles, the inhabited islands of the Inner Hebrides had a population of 18,257 at the 2001 census, and this had grown to 18,948 in 2011. During the same period Scottish island populations as a whole grew by 4% to 103,702, there are a further 44 uninhabited Inner Hebrides with an area greater than 74 acres. Records for the last date of settlement for the islands are incomplete. However, the populations of the islands grew overall by more than 12% from 1981-2001
10.
History of the Outer Hebrides
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There are examples of structures possibly dating from up to 3000 BC, the finest example being the standing stones at Callanish, but some archaeologists date the site as Bronze Age. Little is known of the people who settled in the Hebrides, settlements at Northton, Harris, have both Beaker & Neolithic dwelling houses, the oldest in the Western Isles, attesting to the settlement. The earliest written mention of the Outer Hebrides was by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus in 55 BC, pomponius Mela, a Roman-Spanish writer of the first century, refers to a group of seven islands to which he gave the name Haemodae. Other ancient writers such as Pliny the Elder, the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy, and Solinus all seem to mention the Hebrides, attesting to some contact of the peoples there to the Roman world. Little is known of the history of the peoples of the Hebrides before the 6th century as they, the first written records of the islands come with the arrival of St. Columba in the 6th century. It was this Irish-Scottish saint who first brought Christianity to the islands, the Kingdom of the Isles was a Norse kingdom that existed in the British Isles from 1079 until 1266. The kingdom was formed by Godred Crovan when he seized the Isle of Man from other Vikings, in the first two attempts at capturing the island Godred was defeated, it was only with his third try that he was victorious near Ramsey. Previously, the islands had been taken between c. 700-900 AD, during the Viking invasions of the British Isles, up until the arrival of Godred the islands had been administered by the Norse Kingdoms of Dublin and Orkney. The later Kingdom of Mann was centred around the Isle of Man but also contained the Outer Hebrides, known as Suðreyar or southern islands in Old Norse. Norse control of the Hebrides was formalised in 1098 when Edgar of Scotland recognised the claim of Magnus III of Norway, by capturing the islands Magnus III subdued the Norsemen who had seized the islands centuries earlier and imposed a more direct royal control. The Norwegian control of both the Inner and Outer Hebrides would see almost constant warfare until being ultimately resolved by the partitioning of the Western Isles in 1156. The Outer Hebrides would remain under the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles while the Inner Hebrides broke out under Somerled, after Somerleds death in 1164 the rulers of Mann would no longer be in control of the Inner Hebrides. In 1262 there was a Scottish raid on Skye, causing Haakon IV, King of Norway, Late in 1263 Haakon headed for Scotland with a large invasion force consisting of 200 ships and 15,000 men. The storms around the coast of Scotland took their toll on the Norwegian fleet, after the battle, bad weather forced the Norwegian-Manx fleet to sail back to the Orkney Islands. After arriving in Kirkwall, Haakon decided to winter in Bishops Palace before resuming his campaign the following summer and this failed to occur as the king was struck by illness and died in his palace in December that same year. The Treaty of Perth of 1266 left the Hebrides and the Isle of Man to Scotland for 4,000 marks, the treaty also included that Scotland confirmed Norwegian sovereignty over Shetland and Orkney. Still, Scottish rule over the Isle of Man was finally confirmed only after the Manx under Guðrøðr Magnússon were decisively defeated in the 1275 Battle of Ronaldsway. The Clan MacNeil has strong ties to the Isle of Barra, kisimul Castle at Castlebay is the hereditary seat of the MacNeils
11.
History of Wales
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The history of Wales begins with the arrival of human beings in the region thousands of years ago. Neanderthals lived in what is now Wales, or Cymru in Welsh, at least 230,000 years ago, while Homo sapiens arrived by about 31,000 BC. However, continuous habitation by humans dates from the period after the end of the last ice age around 9000 BC, and Wales has many remains from the Mesolithic, Neolithic. During the Iron Age the region, like all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was dominated by the Celtic Britons, the Romans departed from Britain in the 5th century, opening the door for the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Thereafter Brittonic language and culture began to splinter, and several groups formed. The Welsh people were the largest of groups, and are generally discussed independently of the other surviving Brittonic-speaking peoples after the 11th century. A number of kingdoms formed in present-day Wales in the post-Roman period, internecine struggles and external pressure from the English and later, the Norman conquerors of England, led to the Welsh kingdoms coming gradually under the sway of the English crown. The Welsh launched several revolts against English rule, the last significant one being led by Owain Glyndŵr in the early 15th century. In the 16th century Henry VIII, himself of Welsh extraction as a grandson of Owen Tudor. Under Englands authority, Wales became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, yet, the Welsh retained their language and culture in spite of heavy English dominance. The publication of the significant first complete Welsh translation of the Bible by William Morgan in 1588 greatly advanced the position of Welsh as a literary language. Wales played a full and willing role in World War One, the industries of Empire in Wales declined in the 20th century with the end of the British Empire following the Second World War, while nationalist sentiment and interest in self-determination rose. The Labour Party replaced the Liberal Party as the dominant political force in the 1940s, the nationalist party Plaid Cymru gained short lived momentum in the 1960s. In a 1997 referendum Welsh voters approved the devolution of responsibility to a National Assembly for Wales. The Red Lady of Paviland, a human skeleton dyed in red ochre, was discovered in 1823 in one of the Paviland limestone caves of the Gower Peninsula in Swansea, South Wales. Despite the name, the skeleton is that of a man who lived about 33,000 years ago at the end of the Upper Paleolithic Period. He is considered to be the oldest known burial in Western Europe. The skeleton was found along with jewellery made from ivory and seashells, following the last ice age, Wales became roughly the shape it is today by about 8000 BC and was inhabited by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers
12.
Anglesey
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Anglesey or Ynys Môn is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. With an area of 276 square miles, Anglesey is by far the largest island of Wales, Anglesey is also the largest island in the Irish Sea by area, and the second most populous island in the Irish Sea. The population at the 2011 census was 69,751, two bridges span the Menai Strait, connecting the island to the mainland, the Menai Suspension Bridge, designed by Thomas Telford in 1826, and the Britannia Bridge. A historic county of Wales and later administrated as part of Gwynedd, Anglesey today makes up the Isle of Anglesey County along with Holy Island and other smaller islands. The majority of Angleseys inhabitants are Welsh speakers and Ynys Môn, Anglesey is derived from Old Norse, originally either Ǫngullsey Hook Island or Ǫnglisey Ǫnglis Island. No record of any such Ǫngli survives, but the name was used by Viking raiders as early as the 10th century and was later adopted by the Normans during their invasions of Gwynedd. All of these derive from the proposed Proto-Indo-European root *ank-. It was also spelled as Anglesea. Ynys Môn, the islands Welsh name, was first recorded as Latin Mona by various Roman sources and it was likewise known to the Saxons as Monez. The Brittonic original was in the past taken to have meant Island of the Cow and this view is linguistically untenable, however, according to modern scientific philology. The etymology thus currently remains a mystery, poetic names for Anglesey include the Old Welsh Ynys Dywyll for its former groves and Ynys y Cedairn for its royal courts, Gerald of Wales Môn Mam Cymru for its productivity, and Y fêl Ynys. Numerous megalithic monuments and menhirs are present on Anglesey, testifying to the presence of humans in prehistory, Plas Newydd is near one of 28 cromlechs that remain on uplands overlooking the sea. The Welsh Triads claim that Anglesey was once part of the mainland, historically, Anglesey has long been associated with the druids. News of Boudicas revolt reached him just after his victory, causing him to withdraw his army before consolidating his conquest, the island was finally brought into the Roman Empire by Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the Roman governor of Britain, in AD78. During the Roman occupation, the area was notable for the mining of copper, the foundations of Caer Gybi as well as a fort at Holyhead are Roman, and the present road from Holyhead to Llanfairpwllgwyngyll was originally a Roman road. The island was grouped by Ptolemy with Ireland rather than with Britain, British Iron Age and Roman sites have been excavated and coins and ornaments discovered, especially by the 19th century antiquarian, William Owen Stanley. Following the Roman departure from Britain in the early 5th century, pirates from Ireland colonised Anglesey, in response to this, Cunedda ap Edern, a Gododdin warlord from Scotland, came to the area and began to drive the Irish out. This was continued by his son Einion Yrth ap Cunedda and grandson Cadwallon Lawhir ap Einion, as an island, Anglesey was in a good defensive position, and so Aberffraw became the site of the court, or Llys, of the Kingdom of Gwynedd
13.
History of Ireland
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Christianity subsumed or replaced the earlier polytheism and other forms of Celtic paganism by the end of the 7th century. The Norman invasion of the late 12th century marked the beginning of more than 800 years of direct English rule and, later, in 1177 Prince John Lackland was made Lord of Ireland by his father Henry II of England at the Council of Oxford. The Crown did not attempt to assert control of the island until the rebellion of the Earl of Kildare threatened English hegemony. Henry VIII proclaimed himself King of Ireland and also tried to introduce the English Reformation, attempts to either conquer or assimilate the Irish lordships into the Kingdom of Ireland provided the initial impetus for a series of Irish military campaigns between 1534 and 1603. As the military and political defeat of Gaelic Ireland became more pronounced in the seventeenth century. The 1614 overthrow of the Catholic majority in the Irish Parliament was realised principally through the creation of new boroughs which were dominated by the new settlers. By the end of the century, recusants, representing some 85% of Irelands population, were then banned from the Irish Parliament. Protestant domination of Ireland was confirmed after two periods of war between Catholics and Protestants in 1641-52 and 1689-91, although promised a repeal of the Test Act, Catholics were not granted full rights until Catholic Emancipation was attained throughout the new UK in 1829. This was followed by the first Reform Act 1832, a condition of which was the removal of the poorer British and Irish freeholders from the franchise. The Easter Rising staged by two years later brought physical force republicanism back to the forefront of Irish politics. The six northeastern counties, known as Northern Ireland, remained within the United Kingdom, the Irish Civil War followed soon after the War of Independence. The history of Northern Ireland has since dominated by sporadic sectarian conflict between Irish nationalists and unionists. This conflict erupted into the Troubles in the late 1960s, until peace was achieved with the Belfast Agreement thirty years later, what is known of pre-Christian Ireland comes from references in Roman writings, Irish poetry and myth, and archaeology. While some possible Paleolithic tools have been found, none of the finds are convincing of Paleolithic settlement in Ireland. However a bear found in Alice and Gwendoline Cave, County Clare. The bone shows signs of cut marks with stone tools. The people remained hunter-gatherers until about 6000 BCE, some of these tombs, as at Knowth and Dowth, are huge stone monuments and many of them, such as the Passage Tombs of Newgrange, are astronomically aligned. Four main types of Irish Megalithic Tombs have been identified, dolmens, court cairns, passage tombs, in Leinster and Munster, individual adult males were buried in small stone structures, called cists, under earthen mounds and were accompanied by distinctive decorated pottery
14.
History of the Isle of Man
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The Isle of Man had become separated from Britain and Ireland by 6500 BC. It appears that colonisation took place by sea sometime during the Mesolithic era, the island has been visited by various raiders and trading peoples over the years. After being settled by people from Ireland in the first millennium, after becoming subject to Norwegian suzerainty as part of the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, the Isle of Man later became a possession of the Scottish and then the English crowns. Since 1866, the Isle of Man has been a Crown Dependency and has democratic self-government, a land bridge had earlier existed between the Isle of Man and Cumbria, but the location and opening of the land bridge remain poorly understood. The earliest traces of people on the Isle of Man date back to the Mesolithic Period, the first residents lived in small natural shelters, hunting, gathering and fishing for their food. They used small tools made of flint or bone, examples of which have been found near the coast, representatives of these artifacts are kept at the Manx National Heritage museum. The Neolithic Period marked the coming of farming, improved stone tools, during this period megalithic monuments began to appear around the island. Examples are found at Cashtal yn Ard near Maughold, King Orrys Grave in Laxey, Meayll Circle near Cregneash, the builders of the megaliths were not the only culture during this time, there are also remains of the local Ronaldsway culture and also that of Bann. During the Bronze Age, the communal tombs of the Megalithic culture were replaced with smaller burial mounds. Bodies were put in stone lined graves along with ornamental containers, the Bronze Age burial mounds created long-lasting markers around the countryside. The Iron Age marked the beginning of Celtic cultural influence, large hill forts appeared on hill summits and smaller promontory forts along the coastal cliffs, whilst large timber-framed roundhouses were built. It is likely that the first Celts to inhabit the Island were Brythonic tribes from mainland Britain, the secular history of the Isle of Man during the Brythonic period remains mysterious. It has been speculated that the island may have become a haven for Druids and it is generally assumed that Irish invasion or immigration formed the basis of the modern Manx language, Irish migration to the island probably began in the 5th century AD. This is evident in the change in language used in Ogham inscriptions, the transition between Manx Brythonic and Manx Gaelic may have been gradual. One question is whether the present-day Manx language survives from pre-Norse days or reflects a linguistic reintroduction after the Norse invasion, the island lends its name to Manannán, the Brythonic and Gaelic sea god who is said in myth to have once ruled the island. Tradition attributes the conversion to Christianity to St Maughold, an Irish missionary who gives his name to a parish. There are the remains of around 200 tiny early chapels called keeils scattered across the island, evidence such as radiocarbon dating and magnetic drift points to many of these being built around AD 550-600. The Brythonic culture of Manaw appears throughout early British tradition and later Welsh writings, the family origins of Gwriad ap Elidyr are attributed to a Manaw and he is sometimes named as Gwriad Manaw
15.
Channel Islands
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The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are considered the remnants of the Duchy of Normandy, and although they are not part of the United Kingdom, it is responsible for the defence, the Crown dependencies are not members of the Commonwealth of Nations nor of the European Union. They have a population of about 168,000. The total area of the islands is 198 km2, the two bailiwicks have been administered separately since the late 13th century, each has its own independent laws, elections, and representative bodies. Any institution common to both is the rather than the rule. The Bailiwick of Guernsey is divided into three jurisdictions – Guernsey, Alderney and Sark – each with its own legislature, the term Channel Islands began to be used around 1830, possibly first by the Royal Navy as a collective name for the islands. The permanently inhabited islands of the Channel Islands are, Jersey Guernsey Alderney Sark Herm Jethou Brecqhou There are also several uninhabited islets and they are an incorporated part of the commune of Granville. While they are popular with visitors from France, Channel Islanders rarely visit them as there are no transport links from the other islands. Chausey is referred to as an Île normande, Îles Normandes and Archipel Normand have also, historically, been used in Channel Island French to refer to the islands as a whole. The lowest point is the Atlantic Ocean, the earliest evidence of human occupation of the Channel Islands has been dated to 250,000 years ago when they were attached to the landmass of continental Europe. The islands became detached by rising sea levels in the Neolithic period, hoards of Armorican coins have been excavated, providing evidence of trade and contact in the Iron Age period. Evidence for Roman settlement is sparse, although evidently the islands were visited by Roman officials, the Roman name for the Channel Islands was I. Lenuri and is included in the Peutinger Table The traditional Latin names used for the islands derive from the Antonine Itinerary, gallo-Roman culture was adopted to an unknown extent in the islands. In the sixth century, Christian missionaries visited the islands, samson of Dol, Helier, Marculf and Magloire are among saints associated with the islands. In the sixth century, they were included in the diocese of Coutances where they remained until reformation. The islands were inhabited by Britons, who also inhabited Wales, south west England, from the beginning of the ninth century, Norse raiders appeared on the coasts. Norse settlement succeeded initial attacks, and it is from this period that many names of Norse origin appear. In 933, the islands were granted to William I Longsword by Raoul King of Western Francia, in 1066, William II of Normandy invaded and conquered England, becoming William I of England, also known as William the Conqueror
16.
History of Jersey
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The island of Jersey and the other Channel Islands represent the last remnants of the medieval Duchy of Normandy that held sway in both France and England. Jersey lies in the Bay of Mont Saint-Michel and is the largest of the Channel Islands and it has enjoyed self-government since the division of the Duchy of Normandy in 1204. Rising sea levels resulted in it has been an island for approximately 6,000 years and at its current extremes it measures 10 miles east to west and six miles north to south. Evidence dating from the Ice Age period of dating from at least 12,000 BC have been found. Evidence also exists of settled communities in the Neolithic period, which is marked by the building of the burial sites known as dolmens. The number, size, and visible locations of these monuments have suggested that social organisation over a wide area. Archaeological evidence also shows that trading links with Brittany and the south coast of England existed during this time, evidence of occupation and wealth has been discovered in the form of hoards. In 1889, during construction of a house in Saint Helier, a Bronze Age hoard consisting of 110 implements, mostly spears and swords, was discovered in Saint Lawrence in 1976 - probably a smiths stock. Hoards of coins were discovered at La Marquanderie, in Saint Brelade, Le Câtel, in Trinity, in June 2012, two metal detectorists announced that they had uncovered what could be Europes largest hoard of Iron Age Celtic coins. 70,000 late Iron Age and Roman coins, the hoard is thought to have belonged to a Curiosolitae tribe fleeing Julius Caesars armies around 50 to 60 BC. In October 2012, another metal detectorist reported an earlier Bronze Age find, although Jersey was part of the Roman world, there is a lack of evidence to give a better understanding of the island during the Gallo-Roman and early Middle Ages. The tradition that the island was called Caesarea by the Romans appears to have no basis in fact, the Roman name for the Channel Islands was I. Lenuri and were occupied by the Britons during their migration to Brittany, various saints such as the Celts Samson of Dol and Branwalator were active in the region. A chapel built around 911, now part of the nave of the Parish Church of St Clement. The island took the name Jersey as a result of Viking activity in the area between the 9th and 10th centuries. According to the Rolls of the Norman Exchequer, in 1180 Jersey was divided for administrative purposes into three ministeria, de Gorroic, de Groceio and de Crapau Doit. This was a time of building or extending churches with most parish churches in the island being built/rebuilt in a Norman style chosen by the abbey or priory to which each church had been granted, St Mary and St Martin being given to Cerisy Abbey. The so-called Constitutions of King John are the foundation of modern self-government, from 1204 onwards, the Channel Islands ceased to be a peaceful backwater and became a potential flashpoint on the international stage between England and France
17.
History of Guernsey
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The history of Guernsey stretches back to evidence of prehistoric habitation and settlement and encompasses the development of its modern society. Around 6000 B. C. rising sea created the English Channel, neolithic farmers then settled on its coast and built the dolmens and menhirs found on the islands today. The island of Guernsey contains two sculpted menhirs of great archaeological interest, while the known as LAutel du Dehus contains a dolmen deity known as Le Gardien du Tombeau. The Roman occupation of western Europe induced people to flee, including to the Channel Islands where a number of hoards have been found and it later brought trade and Roman settlements. A 3rd century Gallo-Roman ship wreck was found in St Peter Port harbour, trade was by ship down the west coast of Europe, silver from England, Breton pottery, wine amphorae, as discovered in the Kings Road excavation in St Peter Port. The Nunnery in Alderney, was a 5th Century Roman signal station fort, during their migration to Brittany, Britons occupied the Lenur islands including Sarnia or Lisia and Angia. It was formerly thought that the original name was Sarnia. Travelling from the Kingdom of Gwent, Saint Sampson, later the abbot of Dol in Brittany, is credited with the introduction of Christianity to Guernsey, a chapel, dedicated to St Magloire, stood in the Vale. St Magloire was a nephew of St Samson of Dol, and was born about the year 535. The chapel in his name was mentioned in a bull of Pope Adrian IV as being in the patronage of Mont Saint-Michel, in Normandy, all traces of the chapel have gone. While the chapel would probably be of a later date, St Magloire. Somewhere around A. D.968, monks, from the Benedictine monastery of Mont Saint-Michel, the Priory of Mont Saint-Michel was a dependency of the famous Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel. The island of Guernsey and the island in the Channel Islands represent the last remnants of the medieval Duchy of Normandy. In the islands, Elizabeth IIs traditional title as head of state is Duke of Normandy, according to tradition, Robert I, Duke of Normandy was journeying to England in 1032, to help Edward the Confessor. He was obliged to take shelter in Guernsey and gave land, now known as the Clos du Valle, furthermore, in 1061, when pirates attacked and pillaged the Island, a complaint was made to Duke William. He sent over Sampson DAnneville, who succeeded, with the aid of the monks, for this service, Sampson D Anneville and the monks were rewarded with a grant of half the Island between them. The portion going to the monastery being known as Le Fief St Michel, marie du Catel, and the Vale. The loss of Normandy by King John in 1204 isolated the Channel Islands from mainland Europe, Fortifications were improved in the Channel Islands, manned by professional soldiers and the Guernsey militia who would help to defend the Island for the next 600 years
18.
Prehistoric Britain
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The recorded history of Britain is conventionally reckoned to begin in AD43 with the Roman invasion of Britain, though some historical information is available from before then. Archaeological prehistory, which comprises the bulk of this article, is divided into distinct chronological periods. These are based on the development of tools, from stone to bronze and iron, as well as changes in culture, the boundaries of these periods are uncertain, as the changes between them are gradual. In addition, the dates of these changes demonstrated in Britain are generally different from those of Continental Europe, Britain has been intermittently inhabited by members of the Homo genus for hundreds of thousands of years, and by Homo sapiens for tens of thousands of years. Modern humans reached Britain by around 42,000 years before present, people then briefly re-occupied Britain, but cold conditions returned during the Younger Dryas, about 12,900 to 11,600 years ago. It is not known whether Britain was wholly uninhabited during the Younger Dryas, Britain and Ireland were then joined to the Continent, but rising sea levels cut the land bridge between Britain and Ireland by around 11,000 years ago. A large plain between Britain to Continental Europe, known as Doggerland, persisted much longer, probably until around 5600 BC, by around 4000 BC, the island was populated by people with a Neolithic culture. However, none of the inhabitants of Britain had any known, surviving. Because no literature of pre-Roman Britain has survived, its history, culture, though the main evidence for the period is archaeological, there is a growing amount of genetic evidence, which continues to change. There is also an amount of linguistic evidence, from river and hill names, which is covered in the article about Pre-Celtic Britain. The first significant written record of Britain and its inhabitants was made by the Greek navigator Pytheas, however, there may be some additional information on Britain in the Ora Maritima, a text which is now lost but which is incorporated in the writing of the later author Avienus. Julius Caesar also wrote of Britain in about 50 BC after his two expeditions to the island in 55 and 54 BC. The 54 invasion was probably an attempt to conquer at least the southeast of Britain, located at the fringes of Europe, Britain received European technological and cultural achievements much later than Southern Europe and the Mediterranean region did during prehistory. The story of ancient Britain is traditionally seen as one of successive waves of invasion from the continent, more recent archaeological theories have questioned this migrationist interpretation and argue for a more complex relationship between Britain and the Continent. Palaeolithic Britain is the period of the earliest known occupation of Britain by humans and this huge period saw many changes in the environment, encompassing several glacial and interglacial episodes greatly affecting human settlement in the region. Providing dating for this distant period is difficult and contentious, the inhabitants of the region at this time were bands of hunter-gatherers who roamed Northern Europe following herds of animals, or who supported themselves by fishing. Recent scientific evidence regarding mitochondrial DNA sequences from ancient and modern Europe has shown a pattern for the different time periods sampled in the course of the study. Despite some limitations regarding sample sizes, the results were found to be non-random, as such, the results indicate that, in addition to populations in Europe expanding from southern refugia after the last glacial maximum, evidence also exists for various northern refugia
19.
Prehistoric Scotland
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Archaeology and geology continue to reveal the secrets of prehistoric Scotland, uncovering a complex past before the Romans brought Scotland into the scope of recorded history. Scotland is geologically alien to Europe, comprising a lost sliver of the ancient continent of Laurentia, during the Cambrian period the crustal region which became Scotland formed part of the continental shelf of Laurentia, then still south of the equator. Laurentia was separated from the continent of Baltica by the diminishing Iapetus Ocean, the two ancient continents moved toward one another through the Cambrian and Ordovician periods, with tectonic folding during the Silurian pushing the first Scottish land above water. The final collision occurred during the Devonian period, with the Scottish segment of the Laurentian plate smashing into Avalonia, a motile subcontinent which had previously joined with Baltica. This impact threw up a chain of mountains and saw the formation of the granitic West Highland and Grampian mountain chains. During the Permian and Triassic periods, with the Iapetus Ocean entirely closed, at the start of the Tertiary, a constructive plate boundary became active between Laurentia and Eurasia, pushing the two apart. In lowland areas the ice deposited rich fields of glacial till and eroded the softer material surrounding the extinct volcanoes. Neanderthal sites have found in the south of England, and it is possible that early humans made their way to Scotland. Glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and it was only after the ice retreated about 15,000 years ago that Scotland again became habitable, as the climate improved, mesolithic hunter-gatherers extended their range into Scotland. The earliest evidence to date is the flint artefacts found at Howburn Farm, an early settlement at Cramond, near what is today Edinburgh, has been dated to around 8500 BC. Pits and stakeholes suggest a hunter-gatherer encampment, and microlith stone tools made at the site predate finds of similar style in England and this suggests that hunter-gatherers could also have settled down in Scotland. Finds of flint tools on Ben Lawers and at Glen Dee show that people were capable of travelling well inland across the hills. At Balbridie in Aberdeenshire crop markings were investigated, and ditches and post holes found, an almost identical building, with evidence of pottery, was excavated at Claish near Stirling. On the islet of Eilean Domhnuill, in Loch Olabhat on North Uist, there are many other examples across the country, many under the care of Historic Scotland. At the wonderfully well preserved stone house at Knap of Howar on the Orkney island of Papa Westray the walls stand to a low height. Finely made and decorated Unstan ware pottery links the inhabitants to chambered cairn tombs nearby and to sites far afield, including Balbrindi, the houses at Skara Brae on the Mainland of the Orkney Islands are very similar, but are grouped into a village linked by low passageways. This settlement was occupied from about 3000 BC to 2500 BC, pottery found here is of the grooved ware style which is found across Britain as far away as Wessex. About 6 miles from Skara Brae, grooved ware pottery was found at the Standing Stones of Stenness which lie centrally in a group of three major monuments
20.
Prehistoric Shetland
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Prehistoric Shetland refers to a period in the human occupation of the Shetland archipelago of Scotland that was the latter part of these islands prehistory. The period of prior to occupation by the genus Homo is part of the geology of Scotland. A midden site at West Voe on the south coast of Mainland, the same site provides dates for early Neolithic activity and finds at Scord of Brouster in Walls have been dated to 3400 BC. This site includes a cluster of six or seven walled fields, Shetland knives are stone tools that date from this period made from felsite from Northmavine. Heel-shaped cairns, are a style of chambered cairn unique to Shetland, staneydale Temple near Bixter is a large Neolithic ruin containing an oval chamber. Around it are the remains of houses, walls and cairns of the same period, there are numerous Neolithic era standing stones including those at Yoxie on Whalsay and at Boardastubble, Unst. Hjaltadans on Fetlar is a ring of stones, although there are no true stone circles as such in Shetland, funzie Girt is a remarkable dividing wall that ran for 4 kilometres across the island of Fetlar. The level of organisation involved suggest a high population for Shetland in the Neolithic. Pottery shards found at the important site of Jarlshof indicate that there was Neolithic activity there although the settlement dates from the Bronze Age. This includes a smithy, a cluster of wheelhouses and a later broch, the site has provided evidence of habitation during various phases right up until Viking times. Numerous brochs were erected during the Iron Age, the Broch of Mousa is the finest preserved example in Scotland of these round towers. In addition to Mousa there are significant broch ruins at Clickimin, Culswick, Old Scatness and West Burrafirth, although their origin and purpose is a matter of some controversy. In 2011 the collective site, The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland including Broch of Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof joined the UKs Tentative List of World Heritage Sites. In AD43 and 77 the Roman authors Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder referred to the seven islands they call Haemodae and Acmodae respectively, both of which are assumed to be Shetland. However, another early reference to the Shetland islands may have been when Tacitus reported that the Roman fleet had seen Thule on a voyage that included Orkney in AD98. Watson states that Tacitus was referring to Shetland, although Breeze, the later Iron Age inhabitants of the Northern Isles were probably Pictish, although the historical record is sparse. The St Ninians Isle Treasure was discovered in 1958 by a local schoolboy, Coutts was helping visiting archaeologists led by A. C. ODell of Aberdeen University at a dig on the island, the silver bowls, jewellery and other pieces are believed to date from approximately AD800
21.
Prehistoric Orkney
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Prehistoric Orkney refers to a period in the human occupation of the Orkney archipelago of Scotland that was the latter part of these islands prehistory. The period of prior to occupation by the genus Homo is part of the geology of Scotland. Although some written records refer to Orkney during the Roman invasions of Scotland, there are numerous important prehistoric remains in Orkney, especially from the Neolithic period, four of which form a World Heritage Site. There are diverse reasons for the abundance of the archaeological record, the sandstone bedrock provides easily workable stone materials and the wind-blown sands have helped preserve several sites. The relative lack of industrialisation and low incidence of ploughing also have helped to preserve these ancient monuments, local tradition hints at both a fear and veneration of these ancient structures that may have helped to retain their structural integrity. The Paleolithic lasted until the retreat of the ice, the Mesolithic until the adoption of farming, a number of the sites span long periods of time and in particular the distinctions between the Neolithic and the later periods are not clear cut. The subsequent Iron Age supported a return to building, especially of brochs. The sites discussed are found on the Orkney Mainland unless otherwise stated, no traces have yet been found in Scotland of either a Neanderthal presence or of Homo sapiens during the Pleistocene interglacials. The first indications of humans occur only after the ice retreated in the 11th millennium BC, since that time the landscape of Orkney has been altered by both human and natural forces. Initially, sea levels were lower than at present due to the volume of ice that remained. This meant that the Orkney islands may have attached to the mainland. Much of the North Sea basin was dry land until after 4000 BC. This would have travel to northern Scotland relatively easy for early human settlers. The subsequent isostatic rise of land makes estimating post-glacial coastlines a complex task, the very limited archaeological record provides scant evidence of Mesolithic life in Orkney in particular and Scotland north of Inverness in general. Lithic scatter sites at Seatter, South Ettit, Wideford Hill, Valdigar and Loch of Stenness have produced small polished stone tools, a charred hazelnut shell, recovered during the excavations at Longhowe in Tankerness in 2007, has been dated to 6820-6660 BC. However, there is no evidence to suggest whether or not these sites were in year-round occupation, a recently excavated site on Stronsay has produced a thousand pieces of flint and what may be evidence of a temporary camp. With a tentative dating of 7000 BC or older it may prove to be the oldest settlement site found so far on Orkney, about 6000 BC the Storegga Slides of the coast of Norway created a tsunami that reached 25 metres above normal high tides in places. Evidence of widespread coastal inundations from a wave 8 metres high has been found as far south as Fife, the assemblage of monumental Neolithic structures in Orkney is without parallel in the United Kingdom and on the Orkney Mainland provides an entire landscape of features from this period
22.
Prehistoric Wales
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However, studies of population genetics now suggest that this may not be true, and that immigration was on a smaller scale. The earliest known human remains discovered in modern-day Wales date from 230,000 years ago. Excavations of the site in between 1978 and 1995 revealed a further 17 teeth belonging to five individuals, a total of seven hand axes and some animal bones, some of which show signs of butchery. This site is the most north-westerly in Eurasia at which the remains of hominids have been found. Late Neanderthal hand axes were found at Coygan Cave, Carmarthenshire and have been dated to between 60,000 and 35,000 years old. The Paviland limestone caves of the Gower Peninsula in south Wales are by far the richest source of Aurignacian material in Britain, including burins, the first remains of modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens to be found in Wales was the famous Red Lady of Paviland. This was a human skeleton dyed in red ochre discovered in 1823 in one of the Paviland caves, despite the name, the skeleton is actually that of a young man who lived about 33,000 years ago at the end of the Upper Paleolithic Period. He is considered to be the oldest known burial in Western Europe. The skeleton was found along with fragments of small cylindrical ivory rods, fragments of ivory bracelets, settlement in Wales was apparently intermittent as periods of cooling and warming led to the ice sheets advancing and retreating. Wales appears to have been abandoned from about 21,000 years ago until after 13,000 years ago, following the last Ice age, Wales became roughly the shape it is today by about 7000 BC and was inhabited by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Wales has many sites where Mesolithic material has found. The earliest dated Mesolithic site in Wales is Nab Head, Pembrokeshire, many of the sites from this period are coastal, although 9,000 years ago they would have been some distance inland from the sea. There is a concentration in Pembrokeshire, but there are also a good number of upland sites, most apparently seasonal hunting locations. Some decorated pebbles found at Rhuddlan represent the earliest art found in Wales, the earliest farming communities are now believed to date from about 4000 BC, marking the beginning of the Neolithic period. Pollen evidence indicates the clearing of forests on an increasing scale during this period, the Neolithic saw the construction of many chambered tombs, the most notable including Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres on Anglesey. Megalithic tombs are most common in the western lowlands, there is evidence of close cultural links with Ireland, particularly in the Early Neolithic period. A number of houses from the Neolithic period have also found in Wales. Many artefacts have also found, particularly polished stone axeheads
23.
Prehistoric Ireland
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The prehistoric period covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age societies of Ireland. For much of Europe, the record begins when the Romans invaded, as Ireland was not invaded by the Romans its historical record starts later. During the Last Glacial Maximum, Ireland was an Arctic wasteland, the Midland General Glaciation was originally thought to have covered two thirds of the country with ice. Subsequent evidence from the past 50 years has shown this to be untrue, the early part of the Holocene had a climate that was inhospitable to most European animals and plants. Human occupation was unlikely, though fishing possible, during the period between 17,500 and 12,000 years ago, a warmer period, the Bølling-Allerød, allowed the rehabitation of northern areas of Europe by roaming hunter-gatherers. Genetic evidence suggests this reoccupation began in southwestern Europe and faunal remains suggest a refugium in Iberia that extended up into southern France, the original attraction to the north during the pre-boreal period would be species like reindeer and aurochs. Some sites as far north as Sweden inhabited earlier than 10,000 years ago suggest that humans might have used glacial termini as places from which they hunted migratory game. These factors and ecological changes brought humans to the edge of the northernmost ice-free zones of Europe by the onset of the Holocene and this included regions close to Ireland. Britain and Ireland were joined by a bridge, but because this link was cut so early into the warm period few temperate terrestrial flora or fauna crossed into Ireland. The bridge was gone by 14,000 BC, which is before the most recent stadial. The lowered sea level also joined Britain to continental Europe, this persisted much longer, on the eastern side of the Irish Sea, a site dated to 11,000 BC was discovered that indicated people were in the area eating a marine diet including shellfish. These modern humans may have also colonised Ireland after crossing the southern, now ice-free, land bridge that linked south-east Ireland and this land bridge existed until about 14,000 BC. These people may have few resources outside of coastal shellfishing and acorns. However, a bone, found in Alice and Gwendoline Cave, County Clare in 1903. It shows clear signs of cut marks with stone tools, and has been dated to 12,500 years ago. To this day snakes have not made their way back to Ireland, the return of freezing conditions during the Younger Dryas, that occurred in Ireland between 10,900 BC and 9700 BC, may have depopulated Ireland. During the Younger Dryas sea-levels continued to rise and no land bridge between Great Britain and Ireland ever returned. The last ice age came to an end in Ireland about 10–12 thousand years ago, the earliest evidence of human occupation after the retreat of the ice has been dated to around 8000 BC
24.
Roman Britain
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Roman Britain was the area of the island of Great Britain that was governed by the Roman Empire, from AD43 to 410. Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his Gallic Wars, the Britons had been overrun or culturally assimilated by other Celtic tribes during the British Iron Age and had been aiding Caesars enemies. He received tribute, installed a king over the Trinovantes. Planned invasions under Augustus were called off in 34,27, in AD40, Caligula assembled 200,000 men at the Channel, only to have them gather seashells. Three years later, Claudius directed four legions to invade Britain, the Romans defeated the Catuvellauni, and then organized their conquests as the Province of Britain. By the year 47, the Romans held the lands southeast of the Fosse Way, control over Wales was delayed by reverses and the effects of Boudicas uprising, but the Romans expanded steadily northward. Around 197, the Severan Reforms divided Britain into two provinces, Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior, during the Diocletian Reforms, at the end of the 3rd century, Britannia was divided into four provinces under the direction of a vicarius, who administered the Diocese of the Britains. A fifth province, Valentia, is attested in the later 4th century, for much of the later period of the Roman occupation, Britannia was subject to barbarian invasions and often came under the control of imperial usurpers and imperial pretenders. The final Roman withdrawal from Britain occurred around 410, the kingdoms are considered to have formed Sub-Roman Britain after that. Following the conquest of the Britons, a distinctive Romano-British culture emerged as the Romans introduced improved agriculture, urban planning, industrial production, after the initial invasions, Roman historians generally only mention Britain in passing. Thus, most present knowledge derives from archaeological investigations and occasional epigraphic evidence lauding the Britannic achievements of an emperor, over the centuries Roman citizens settled in Britain from many parts of the Empire, such as Italy, Spain, Syria and Algeria. Britain was known to the Classical world, the Greeks, Phoenicians and Carthaginians traded for Cornish tin in the 4th century BC, the Greeks referred to the Cassiterides, or tin islands, and placed them near the west coast of Europe. The Carthaginian sailor Himilco is said to have visited the island in the 5th century BC, however, it was regarded as a place of mystery, with some writers refusing to believe it existed at all. The first direct Roman contact was when Julius Caesar undertook two expeditions in 55 and 54 BC, as part of his conquest of Gaul, believing the Britons were helping the Gallic resistance. The second invasion involved a larger force and Caesar coerced or invited many of the native Celtic tribes to pay tribute. A friendly local king, Mandubracius, was installed, and his rival, hostages were taken, but historians disagree over whether any tribute was paid after Caesar returned to Gaul. Caesar conquered no territory and left no troops behind but he established clients, Augustus planned invasions in 34,27 and 25 BC, but circumstances were never favourable, and the relationship between Britain and Rome settled into one of diplomacy and trade. Strabo, writing late in Augustuss reign, claimed that taxes on trade brought in annual revenue than any conquest could
25.
Scotland during the Roman Empire
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Scotland during the Roman Empire refers to the protohistorical period during which the Roman Empire interacted with the area that is now Scotland, which was known to them as Caledonia. Roman legions arrived around AD71, having conquered the Celtic tribes of Britain over the three decades. Aiming to annex all of the island of Albion, Romans under Q, Julius Agricola invaded the Caledonians in the 70s and 80s. An account by Agricolas son-in-law Tacitus mentions a Roman victory at Mons Graupius which became the namesake of the Grampians but has been questioned by modern scholarship and this line was fortified as Hadrians Wall. Several Roman commanders attempted to conquer lands north of this line. The history of the period is complex and not well-documented, the province of Valentia, for instance, may have been the lands between the two Roman walls, or the territory around and south of Hadrians Wall, or Roman Wales. Romans held most of their Caledonian territory only a little over 40 years, some Scottish historians such as Moffat go so far as to say Romes presence was entirely uninfluential. Scots and Scotland proper would not emerge as unified ideas until centuries later, the Scoti, Gaelic Irish raiders who would give Scotland its English name, had begun to settle along the west coast as well. All three groups may have involved in the Great Conspiracy that overran Roman Britain in 367. The era also saw the emergence of the earliest historical accounts of the natives, the most enduring legacies of Rome, however, were Christianity and literacy, both of which arrived indirectly via Irish missionaries. Scotland had been inhabited for thousands of years before the Romans arrived, however, it is only during the Greco-Roman period that Scotland is recorded in writing. The work On the Cosmos by Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle mentions two very large islands called Albion and Ierne, the Greek explorer and geographer Pytheas visited Britain sometime between 322 and 285 BC and may have circumnavigated the mainland, which he describes as being triangular in shape. In his work On the Ocean, he refers to the most northerly point as Orcas, pomponius Mela, the Roman geographer, recorded in his De Chorographia, written around AD43, that there were 30 Orkney islands and seven Haemodae. There is certainly evidence of an Orcadian connection with Rome prior to AD60 from pottery found at the broch of Gurness. By the time of Pliny the Elder, Roman knowledge of the geography of Scotland had extended to the Hebudes, Dumna, the Caledonian Forest, and the Caledonians. His information becomes much less reliable in the north and west, famously, his coördinates place most of Scotland north of Hadrians Wall bent at a right angle, stretching due eastward from the rest of Britain. It is likely all of these cultures spoke a form of Celtic language known as Pritennic. The occupants of southern Scotland were the Damnonii in the Clyde valley, the Novantae in Galloway, the Selgovae on the south coast and these peoples may have spoken a form of Brythonic language
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Wales in the Roman era
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The history of Wales in the Roman era began in 48 AD with a military invasion by the imperial governor of Roman Britain. The conquest would be completed by 78, and Roman rule would endure until the region was abandoned in AD383, once the conquest was complete, the region and the people living there would be a virtually anonymous part of Roman Britain until the Roman departure. The only town in Wales founded by the Romans, Caerwent, is located in South Wales and it is the Roman campaigns of conquest that are most widely known, due to the spirited but unsuccessful defence of their homelands by two native tribes, the Silures and the Ordovices. Aside from the many Roman-related finds along the southern coast, Roman archaeological remains in Wales consist almost entirely of military roads and they controlled most of the islands centers of wealth, as well as much of its trade and resources. In Wales the known tribes included the Ordovices and Deceangli in the north, apart from this we have little knowledge of the Welsh tribes of this era. In AD47 or 48 the new governor, Publius Ostorius Scapula, moved against the Deceangli along the northeastern coast of Wales, devastating their lands. He campaigned successfully but indecisively against the Silures and then the Ordovices, Scapula died in 52, the same year that the resurgent Silures inflicted a defeat on one of the Roman legions. Scapula was succeeded by a number of governors who made steady, gaius Suetonius Paulinus was in the process of conquering Anglesey in AD60 when the revolt led by Boudica in the east forced a delay in the final conquest of Wales. There followed a decade of peace while Roman imperial attention was focused elsewhere. The main fort in their territory was at Moridunum, built around AD75, the Demetae are the only pre-Roman Welsh tribe that would emerge from Roman rule with their tribal name intact. The mineral wealth of Britain was well-known prior to the Roman invasion and was one of the benefits of conquest. All mineral extractions were state-sponsored and under control, as mineral rights belonged to the emperor. His agents soon found substantial deposits of gold, copper, and lead in Wales, along with some zinc and silver. Gold was mined at Dolaucothi prior to the invasion, but Roman engineering would be applied to increase the amount extracted. This would continue until the process was no practical or profitable. While these efforts have not produced results, the benefits to Rome were substantial. The gold production at Dolaucothi alone may have been of economic significance, the production of goods for trade and export in Roman Britain was concentrated in the south and east, with virtually none situated in Wales. Glass-making sites were located in or near urban centres, in Wales none of the needed materials were available in suitable combination, and the forested, mountainous countryside was not amenable to this kind of industrialisation
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Hiberno-Roman relations
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Richard Warner of the Ulster Museum has noted what he claims to be ‘a Roman grave’ at Kilkenny with a cremation in an urn. Colins Adams Rome never annexed Hibernia into the Roman Empire, but did exert influence on the island and this influence was expressed in three characteristic ways, commercial, cultural and religious, and military. The relationship between Rome and Hibernia was mostly commercial, scholar Richard Warner in 1995 wrote that after emperor Claudius invasion of southern Britannia, the trade routes between the Mediterranean sea and Roman Britannia encompassed even Hibernia. The geographer Ptolemy, in his map of the 1st century AD, pinpointed the coastal settlements and tribes of Ireland, additionally, there are many Roman archaeological objects found in areas of central and southern Ireland, that reveal a relationship. Roman coins have also found at Newgrange. Prosper says in his Contra Collatorem that by this act Celestine made the barbarian island Christian, although it is clear the Christianisation of Ireland was a longer and more gradual process. Apart from the introduction of a new religion, the influence from Rome can be seen even in the clothes of high-ranking people inside Celtic tribes of the 3rd. The Ogham alphabet and writing system, was derived from the Latin alphabet after contact, in fact, several Ogham stones in Wales are bilingual, containing both Old Irish and Latin-influenced Brythonic inscriptions. There is some evidence of possible exploratory expeditions during the time of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, in places like Drumanagh and Lambay island, some Roman military-related finds may be evidence for some form of Roman presence. We can say this because the sites that produce early Roman objects also produce later Roman material, in particular Tara, the midland ritual complex, and Clogher, a northern hillfort, have produced early and late Roman material, but no native objects. Both became capitals of the new ascendancies whose ancient origin-tales derived them, with their armies, cashel, the southern capital of just such a group, has not only produced a stray late Roman brooch, but was named from the Latin castellum. Other interpretations, however, suggest these may be merely Roman trading outposts, later, during the collapse of Roman authority in the 4th and 5th centuries, Irish tribes raided Britain and may have brought back Roman knowledge of classical civilization. The question of whether the Romans ever landed in Ireland has long been the subject of speculation and this Roman author tells us that around those years Agricola had with him an Irish chieftain who later returned to conquer Ireland with an army. Excavations at sites linked to the tale of Tuathal have produced Roman material of the late 1st or early 2nd centuries and it would be consistent for Tuathal to have been that Irish chieftain. Clearly neither Agricola nor his successors ever conquered Ireland, but in recent years archaeology has challenged the belief that the Romans never set foot on the island, however, whether this is evidence of trade, diplomacy or military activity is a matter of controversy. It is possible that the Romans may have support to Túathal, or someone like him. Furthermore, the 2nd-century Roman poet Juvenal, who may have served in Britain under Agricola, wrote that arms had been taken beyond the shores of Iuverna, and the coincidence of dates is striking. Although Juvenal is not writing history, it is possible that he is referring to a genuine Roman military expedition to Ireland and it is also speculated that such an invasion may have been the origin of the presence of the Brigantes in Ireland as noted in Ptolemys 2nd century Geography
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Sub-Roman Britain
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The term Post-Roman Britain is also used for the period, mainly in non-archaeological contexts. It is now often used to denote this period of history instead. Gradually the latter assumed more control, the Picts in northern Scotland were outside the applicable area. The period of sub-Roman Britain traditionally covers the history of the area subsequently became England from the end of Roman imperial rule in 410 to the arrival of Saint Augustine in 597. The date taken for the end of period is arbitrary in that the sub-Roman culture continued in the West of England. This period has attracted a deal of academic and popular debate. The term post-Roman Britain is also used for the period, mainly in non-archaeological contexts, Britain south of the Forth–Clyde line. The history of the area between Hadrians Wall and the Forth–Clyde line is unclear, North of the line lay an area inhabited by tribes about whom so little is known that we resort to calling them by a generic name, Picts. The period may also be considered as part of the early Middle Ages, popular works use a range of more dramatic names for the period, the Dark Ages, the Brythonic Age, the Age of Tyrants, or the Age of Arthur. There is very little extant written material available from this period, a lot of what is available deals with the first few decades of the 5th century only. The sources can usefully be classified into British and continental, two primary contemporary British sources exist, the Confessio of Saint Patrick and Gildas De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Patricks Confessio and his Letter to Coroticus reveal aspects of life in Britain and it is particularly useful in highlighting the state of Christianity at the time. Gildas is the nearest to a source of Sub-Roman history but there are problems in using it. The document represents British history as he and his audience understood it, though a few other documents of the period do exist, such as Gildas letters on monasticism, they are not directly relevant to British history. The historical section of De Excidio is short, and the material in it is selected with Gildas purpose in mind. There are no dates given, and some of the details, such as those regarding the Hadrians. There are more continental contemporary sources that mention Britain, though these are highly problematic, the most famous is the so-called Rescript of Honorius, in which the Western Emperor Honorius tells the British civitates to look to their own defence. The work of Procopius, another 6th century Byzantine writer, makes references to Britain
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England in the Middle Ages
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England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the economy was in tatters, after several centuries of Germanic immigration, new identities and cultures began to emerge, developing into predatory kingdoms that competed for power. A rich artistic culture flourished under the Anglo-Saxons, producing epic poems such as Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the 7th century and a network of monasteries and convents were built across England. The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to the defeat and replacement of the Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman and French nobles, William the Conqueror and his successors took over the existing state system, repressing local revolts and controlling the population through a network of castles. The new rulers introduced an approach to governing England, eradicating the practice of slavery. The position of women in society changed as laws regarding land, Englands population more than doubled during the 12th and 13th centuries, fuelling an expansion of the towns, cities and trade, helped by warmer temperatures across Northern Europe. A new wave of monasteries and friaries were established, while ecclesiastical reforms led to tensions between successive kings and archbishops, despite developments in Englands governance and legal system, infighting between the Anglo-Norman elite resulted in multiple civil wars and the loss of Normandy. Nearly 1,500 villages were deserted by their inhabitants and many men and women sought new opportunities in the towns, new technologies were introduced, and England produced some of the great medieval philosophers and natural scientists. English kings in the 14th and 15th centuries laid claim to the French throne, more social unrest broke out, followed by the Wars of the Roses, fought between rival factions in the English nobility. Henry VIIs victory in 1485 typically marks the end of the Middle Ages in England, at the start of the Middle Ages, England was a part of Britannia, a former province of the Roman Empire. The English economy had once dominated by imperial Roman spending on a large military establishment, which in turn helped to support a complex network of towns, roads. At the end of the 4th century, however, Roman forces had largely withdrawn. Germanic immigrants began to arrive in increasing numbers during the 5th century, initially peacefully, establishing small farms, in the 7th century, the kingdom of Mercia rose to prominence under the leadership of King Penda. Mercia invaded neighbouring lands until it loosely controlled around 50 regiones covering much of England, Mercia and the remaining kingdoms, led by their warrior elites, continued to compete for territory throughout the 8th century. Massive earthworks, such as the dyke built by Offa of Mercia, helped to defend key frontiers. Mercia and Northumbria fell in 875 and 876, and Alfred of Wessex was driven into exile in 878. Suppressing internal opposition to his rule, Alfred contained the invaders within a known as the Danelaw. The West Saxon rulers were now kings of the Angelcynn, that is of the whole English folk, with the death of Edgar, however, the royal succession became problematic
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History of Anglo-Saxon England
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Anglo-Saxon England was early medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th century from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066. It consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927 when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan and it became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway in the 11th century. The Anglo-Saxons were the members of Germanic-speaking groups who migrated to the half of the island from continental Europe. Anglo-Saxon identity survived beyond the Norman conquest, came to be known as Englishry under Norman rule, Bede completed his book Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum in around 731. Thus the term for English people was in use by then to distinguish Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent, the historian James Campbell suggested that it was not until the late Anglo-Saxon period that England could be described as a nation state. It is certain that the concept of Englishness only developed very slowly, as the Roman occupation of Britain was coming to an end, Constantine III withdrew the remains of the army, in reaction to the barbarian invasion of Europe. The Romano-British leaders were faced with a security problem from seaborne raids. The expedient adopted by the Romano-British leaders was to enlist the help of Anglo-Saxon mercenaries, in about 442 the Anglo-Saxons mutinied, apparently because they had not been paid. There then followed several years of fighting between the British and the Anglo-Saxons, the fighting continued until around 500, when, at the Battle of Mount Badon, the Britons inflicted a severe defeat on the Anglo-Saxons. There are records of Germanic infiltration into Britain that date before the collapse of the Roman Empire and it is believed that the earliest Germanic visitors were eight cohorts of Batavians attached to the 14th Legion in the original invasion force under Aulus Plautius in AD43. There is a hypothesis that some of the tribes, identified as Britons by the Romans. It was quite common for Rome to swell its legions with foederati recruited from the German homelands and this practice also extended to the army serving in Britain, and graves of these mercenaries, along with their families, can be identified in the Roman cemeteries of the period. The migration continued with the departure of the Roman army, when Anglo-Saxons were recruited to defend Britain, and also during the period of the Anglo-Saxon first rebellion of 442. The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons into Britain can be seen in the context of a movement of Germanic peoples around Europe between the years 300 and 700, known as the Migration period. In the same there were migrations of Britons to the Armorican peninsula, initially around 383 during Roman rule. The historian Peter Hunter-Blair expounded what is now regarded as the view of the Anglo-Saxon arrival in Britain. He suggested a mass immigration, fighting and driving the Sub-Roman Britons off their land and into the extremities of the islands. This view was influenced by sources such as Bede, where he talks about the Britons being slaughtered or going into perpetual servitude
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England in the High Middle Ages
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A disputed succession and victory at the Battle of Hastings led to the conquest of England by William of Normandy in 1066. This linked the crown of England with possessions in France and brought a new aristocracy to the country that dominated landholding, government and they brought with them the French language and maintained their rule through a system of castles and the introduction of a feudal system of landholding. By the time of Williams death in 1087, England formed the largest part of an Anglo-Norman empire, ruled by nobles with landholdings across England, Normandy, Williams sons disputed succession to his lands, with William II emerging as ruler of England and much of Normandy. On his death in 1100 his younger brother claimed the throne as Henry I and defeated his brother Robert to reunite England and Normandy. Henry was a ruthless yet effective king, but after the death of his male heir in the White Ship tragedy. When Henry died in 1135 her cousin Stephen of Blois had himself proclaimed king, leading to a war known as The Anarchy. Eventually Stephen recognised Matildas son Henry as his heir and when Stephen died in 1154, Henry, considered the first Angevin king of England, had extensive holdings in France and asserted his authority over Wales, Scotland and Ireland. He clashed with his appointee to the Archbishopric of Canterbury Thomas Becket, resulting in Beckets murder, the later part of his reign was dominated by rebellions involving his sons and Philip II of France that forced him to accept his son Richard as sole heir. Richard acceded to the Angevin inheritance on Henrys death in 1189, on his return journey he was taken hostage in Germany and a huge ransom was paid in order to secure his release in 1194. He spent the remainder of his reign restoring his lands in France and his younger brother John succeeded in England, and fought a successful war against Richards nephew Arthur for control of the French possession. Johns behaviour led to rebellions by the Norman and Angevin barons that broke his control of the continental possessions and his attempt to retake Normandy and Anjou was defeated at the Battle of Bouvines. This weakened his position in England, eventually resulting in the treaty called Magna Carta, which limited power. His death in 1216 is considered by historians to mark the end of the Angevin period. The Normans adopted many Anglo-Saxon governmental institutions, but the system concentrated more power in the hands of the king. The rights and roles of women became more sharply defined, noblewomen remained significant cultural and religious patrons and played an important part in political and military events. During the twelfth century divisions between conquerors and the English began to dissolve and they began to consider superior to their Celtic neighbours. The conquest brought Norman and French churchmen to power, new reformed religious and military orders were introduced into England. By the early thirteenth century the church had won its argument for independence from the state
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England in the Late Middle Ages
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At the accession of Henry III only a remnant of English holdings remained in Gascony, for which English kings had to pay homage to the French, and the barons were in revolt. Royal authority was restored by his son who inherited the throne in 1272 as Edward I and he reorganized his possessions, and gained control of Wales and most of Scotland. His son Edward II was defeated at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and he was eventually deposed in a coup and from 1330 his son Edward III took control of the kingdom. With a shortage of labour, much of Englands arable land was converted to pasture. Social unrest followed in the Peasants Revolt of 1381, Richard was deposed by Henry of Bolingbroke in 1399, who as Henry IV founded the House of Lancaster and reopened the war with France. However, the French enjoyed another resurgence and by 1453 the English had lost almost all their French holdings. Henry VI proved a weak king and was deposed in the Wars of the Roses. English government went through periods of reform and decay, with parliament emerging as an important part of the administration, women had an important economic role and noblewomen exercised power on their estates in their husbands absence. The English began to see themselves are superior to their neighbours in the British Isles, new reformed monastic orders and preaching orders reached England from the twelfth century, pilgrimage became highly popular and Lollardy emerged as a major heresy from the later fourteenth century. The Little Ice Age had a significant impact on agriculture and living conditions, economic growth began to falter at the end of the thirteenth century, owing to a combination of overpopulation, land shortages and depleted soils. Technology and science was driven in part by the Greek and Islamic thinking that reached England from the twelfth century, in warfare, mercenaries were increasingly employed and adequate supplies of ready casequipped and uniformed. Medieval England produced art in the form of paintings, carvings, books, fabrics and many functional, by the time of Edward III, armies were smaller, but the troops were better objects. Literature was produced in Latin and French and from the reign of Richard II there was an upsurge in the use of Middle English in poetry, music and singing were important were used in religious ceremonies, court occasions and to accompany theatrical works. During the twelfth century the Anglo-Norman architectural style became more ornate, with pointed arches derived from France, as Henry II he consolidated his holdings and acquired nominal control of Wales and Ireland. His son Richard I was a largely absentee English king, concerned the crusades and his brother Johns defeats in France weakened his position in England. The rebellion of his English vassals resulted in the treaty called Magna Carta and this would form the basis of every constitutional battle through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. However, both the barons and the failed to abide by the terms of Magna Carta, leading to the First Barons War in which the rebel barons invited an invasion by Prince Louis. When Henry III came to the throne in 1216, much of his holdings on the continent were occupied by the French, marshall won the war with victories at the battles of Lincoln and Dover in 1217, leading to the Treaty of Lambeth by which Louis renounced his claims
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Scotland in the Middle Ages
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From the fifth century North Britain was divided into a series of petty kingdoms. Of these the four most important to emerge were the Picts, the Scots of Dál Riata, the Britons of Strathclyde, after the arrival of the Vikings in the late eighth century, Scandinavian rulers and colonies were established along parts of the coasts and in the islands. In the ninth century the Scots and Picts combined under the House of Alpin to form a single Kingdom of Alba, with a Pictish base and dominated by Gaelic culture. After the reign of King David I in the twelfth century, Alexander II and his son Alexander III, were able to annexe the remainder of the western seaboard, cumulating the Treaty of Perth with Norway in 1266. Scotland established its independence from England under figures including William Wallace in the thirteenth century. Kingship was the form of government, growing in sophistication in the late Middle Ages. The scale and nature of war changed, with larger armies, naval forces. Christianity introduced monasticism and what has been identified as Celtic Christianity, Scotland grew from a relatively small area in the eastern Lowlands, to approximately its modern borders. The varied and dramatic geography of the land provided a protection against invasion and it also defined the largely pastoral economy, with the first burghs being created from the twelfth century. The population may have grown to a peak of a million before the arrival of the Black Death in 1337, in the early Middle Ages society was divided between a small aristocracy and larger numbers of freemen and slaves. Serfdom disappeared in the century and there was a growth of new social groups. The Pictish and Cumbric languages were replaced by Gaelic, Old English and later Norse, from the eleventh century French was adopted in the court and in the late Middle Ages, Scots, derived from Old English, became dominant, with Gaelic largely confined to the Highlands. Christianity brought Latin, written culture and monasteries as centres of learning, from the twelfth century, educational opportunities widened and a growth of lay education cumulated in the Education Act 1496. Until in the century, when Scotland gained three universities, Scots pursuing higher education had to travel to England or the continent, where some gained an international reputation. Art from the early Middle Ages survives in carving, in metalwork, and elaborate illuminated books, much of the finest later work has not survived, but there are a few key examples, particularly of work commissioned in the Netherlands. Scotland had a tradition, with secular music composed and performed by bards and from the thirteenth century, church music increasingly influenced by continental. In the centuries after the departure of the Romans from Britain, in the east were the Picts, whose kingdoms eventually stretched from the river Forth to Shetland. After his death seems to have shifted to the Fortriu, whose lands were centred on Strathearn and Menteith
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Scotland in the Early Middle Ages
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Of these, the four most important to emerge were the Picts, the Scots of Dál Riata, the Britons of Alt Clut, and the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia. After the arrival of the Vikings in the late 8th century, Scandinavian rulers and colonies were established on the islands and along parts of the coasts. In the 9th century, the House of Alpin combined the lands of the Scots and Picts to form a kingdom which constituted the basis of the kingdom of Scotland. Scotland has a coastline and vast areas of difficult terrain. In this period, more land became marginal due to change, resulting in relatively light human settlement, particularly in the interior. Northern Britain lacked urban centres and settlements were based on farmsteads and around fortified positions such as brochs, with mixed-farming primarily based on self-sufficiency. In this period, changes in settlement and colonisation meant that the Pictish and Brythonic languages began to be subsumed by Gaelic, English, Life expectancy was relatively low, leading to a young population, with a ruling aristocracy, freemen, and relatively large numbers of slaves. The expansion of Christianity from the margins of Scotland was key to the development of this period, initially influenced by the Celtic tradition originating from what is now Ireland, by the end of the era it had become integrated into the organisational structures of the Catholic Church. This period produced some highly distinctive monumental and ornamental art, culminating in the development of the Insular art style, common across Britain, the most impressive structures included nucleated hill forts and, after the introduction of Christianity, churches and monasteries. The period also saw the beginnings of Scottish literature in British, Old English, Gaelic, as the first half of the period is largely prehistoric, archaeology plays an important part in studies of early Medieval Scotland. From the 7th century, there is evidence from Latin sources including the lives of saints, such as Adomnáns, Life of St. Columba. Archaeological sources include settlements, art, and surviving everyday objects, by the time of Bede and Adomnán, in the late seventh century and early eighth century, four major circles of influence had emerged in northern Britain. In the east were the Picts, whose kingdoms eventually stretched from the river Forth to Shetland, in the south was the British Kingdom of Alt Clut, descendants of the peoples of the Roman-influenced kingdoms of The Old North. Finally, there were the English or Angles, Germanic invaders who had much of southern Britain and held the Kingdom of Bernicia, in the south-east. The confederation of Pictish tribes that developed north of the Firth of Forth may have stretched up as far as Orkney and it probably developed out of the tribes of the Caledonii, perhaps as a response to the pressure exerted by the presence of the Romans to the south. They first appear in Roman records at the end of the 3rd century as the picti when Roman forces campaigned against them, the first identifiable king of the Picts, who seems to have exerted a superior and wide-ranging authority, was Bridei mac Maelchon. His power was based in the kingdom of Fidach, and his base was at the fort of Craig Phadrig, near modern Inverness. After his death, leadership seems to have shifted to the Fortriu, whose lands were centred on Strathearn and Menteith, Christian missionaries from Iona appear to have begun the conversion of the Picts to Christianity from 563
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Scotland in the High Middle Ages
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At the close of the ninth century, various competing kingdoms occupied the territory of modern Scotland. From its base in the east, this kingdom acquired control of the lying to the south and ultimately the west. It had a culture, comprising part of the larger Gaelic-speaking world. After the twelfth-century reign of King David I, the Scottish monarchs are better described as Scoto-Norman than Gaelic, a consequence was the spread of French institutions and social values including Canon law. The first towns, called burghs, appeared in the same era and these developments were offset by the acquisition of the Norse-Gaelic west and the Gaelicisation of many of the noble families of French and Anglo-French origin. National cohesion was fostered with the creation of various unique religious, by the end of the period, Scotland experienced a Gaelic revival, which created an integrated Scottish national identity. By this date, the Kingdom of Scotland had political boundaries that closely resembled those of the modern nation, Scotland in the High Middle Ages is a relatively well-studied topic and Scottish medievalists have produced a wide variety of publications. Some, such as David Dumville, Thomas Owen Clancy and Dauvit Broun, are interested in the native cultures of the country. Barrow, are concerned with the Norman and Scoto-Norman cultures introduced to Scotland after the eleventh century, for much of the twentieth century, historians tended to stress the cultural change that took place in Scotland during this time. However, scholars such as Cynthia Neville and Richard Oram, while not ignoring cultural changes, argue that continuity with the Gaelic past was just as, if not more, important. Since the publication of Scandinavian Scotland by Barbara E. Crawford in 1987, the sources for information about the Hebrides and indeed much of northern Scotland from the eighth to the eleventh century, are thus almost exclusively Irish, English or Norse. The main Norse texts were written in the thirteenth century. At the close of the ninth century various polities occupied Scotland, the Pictish and Gaelic Kingdom of Alba had just been united in the east, the Scandinavian-influenced Kingdom of the Isles emerged in the west. Dumbarton, the capital of the Kingdom of Strathclyde had been sacked by the Uí Ímair in 870 and this was clearly a major assault, which may have brought the whole of mainland Scotland under temporary Uí Imair control. The south-east had been absorbed by the English Kingdom of Bernicia/Northumbria in the seventh century, Galloway in the south west was a Lordship with some regality. In a Galwegian charter dated to the reign of Fergus, the Galwegian ruler styled himself rex Galwitensium, in the north east the ruler of Moray was called not only king in both Scandinavian and Irish sources, but before Máel Snechtai, King of Alba. However, when Domnall mac Causantín died at Dunnottar in 900, he was the first man to be recorded as rí Alban and his kingdom was the nucleus that would expand as Viking and other influences waned. In the tenth century the Alban elite had begun to develop a conquest myth to explain their increasing Gaelicisation at the expense of Pictish culture, known as MacAlpins Treason, it describes how Cináed mac Ailpín is supposed to have annihilated the Picts in one fell takeover
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Scotland in the Late Middle Ages
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There were significant changes in religion which saw mendicant friars and new devotions expand, particularly in the developing burghs. By the end of the period Scotland had adopted many of the tenets of the European Renaissance in art, architecture and literature. The death of king Alexander III in 1286, and the subsequent death of his granddaughter and heir Margaret in 1290, to prevent civil war the Scottish magnates asked Edward I of England to arbitrate. Robert Bruce of Annandale, the next strongest claimant, accepted this outcome with reluctance, over the next few years Edward I used the concessions he had gained to systematically undermine both the authority of King John and the independence of Scotland. In 1295 John, on the urgings of his councillors, entered into an alliance with France. In 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, deposing King John, the following year William Wallace and Andrew Murrey raised forces to resist the occupation and under their joint leadership an English army was defeated at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Murrey died of wounds after the battle and for a short time Wallace ruled Scotland in the name of John Balliol as Guardian of the realm, Edward came north in person and defeated Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk. Wallace escaped but probably resigned as Guardian of Scotland, in 1305 he fell into the hands of the English, who executed him for treason despite the fact that he owed no allegiance to England. Rivals John Comyn and Robert the Bruce, grandson of the claimant Robert Bruce of Annandale, were appointed as joint guardians in Wallaces place, on 10 February 1306, Bruce participated in the murder of Comyn, at Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries. Less than seven weeks later, on 25 March Bruce was crowned as king Robert I at Scone, however, Edwards forces overran the country after defeating Bruces small army at the Battle of Methven. Edward I had died in 1307 and his heir Edward II moved an army north to break the siege of Stirling Castle and they were defeated by forces under Robert I at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, securing de facto independence. The Declaration has also seen as one of the most important documents in the development of a Scottish national identity. Roberts brother Edward Bruce carried out a series of campaigns against English forces in Ireland and was declared High King, the campaigns in Ireland, although ultimately unsuccessful, opened the prospect of what has been characterised as Pan-Gaelic Greater Scotia under the Bruce dynasty. Roberts forces carried out a series of raids of Northern England, Robert I died in 1329, leaving his five-year-old son to reign as David II. During his minority, the country was ruled by a series of governors and this was on the pretext of restoring Edward Balliol, son of John Balliol, to the Scottish throne, thus starting the Second War of Independence. Edward III lost interest in the fate of his protege after the outbreak of the Hundred Years War with France, in 1341 David was able to return from temporary exile in France. His cousin Robert Stewart ruled as guardian in his absence, Balliol finally resigned his claim to the throne to Edward in 1356, before retiring to Yorkshire, where he died in 1364. Major issues were his marriages and the failure to produce an heir and his first wife, Joan, the sister of Edward III, left him for England sometime after his return and she died without children in 1362
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Wales in the Middle Ages
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When the Roman garrison of Britain was withdrawn in 410, the various British states were left self-governing. There was considerable Irish colonisation in Dyfed, where there are stones with ogham inscriptions. One of the reasons for the Roman withdrawal was the put upon the empires military resources by the incursion of barbarian tribes from the east. These tribes, including the Angles and Saxons, who became the English, were unable to make inroads into Wales except possibly along the Severn Valley as far as Llanidloes. However they gradually conquered eastern and southern Britain, at the Battle of Chester in 616, the forces of Powys and other British kingdoms were defeated by the Northumbrians under Æthelfrith, with king Selyf ap Cynan among the dead. From the 8th century on, Wales was by far the largest of the three remnant Brittonic areas in Britain, the two being the Hen Ogledd and Cornwall. Wales was divided into a number of kingdoms, the largest of these being Gwynedd in northwest Wales. Powys as the easternmost of the kingdoms of Wales came under the most pressure from the English in Cheshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire. This kingdom originally extended east into areas now in England, and its ancient capital and these areas were lost to the kingdom of Mercia. The construction of the known as Offas Dyke may have marked an agreed border. For a single man to rule the country during this period was rare. This is often ascribed to the system practised in Wales. All sons received a share of their fathers property, resulting in the division of territories. However, the Welsh laws prescribe this system of division for land in general, not for kingdoms, any son, legitimate or illegitimate, could be chosen as edling and there were frequently disappointed candidates prepared to challenge the chosen heir. The first to rule a part of Wales was Rhodri the Great, originally king of Gwynedd during the 9th century. On his death his realms were divided between his sons, rhodris grandson, Hywel Dda, formed the kingdom of Deheubarth by joining smaller kingdoms in the southwest and had extended his rule to most of Wales by 942. He is traditionally associated with the codification of Welsh law at a council which he called at Whitland, Hywel followed a policy of peace with the English. On his death in 949 his sons were able to control of Deheubarth
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Wales in the Early Middle Ages
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Wales in the early Middle Ages covers the time between the Roman departure from Wales c.383 and the rise of Merfyn Frych to the throne of Gwynedd c. In that time there was a consolidation of power into increasingly hierarchical kingdoms. Successful unification into something recognisable as a Welsh state would come in the era under the descendants of Merfyn Vrych. Wales was rural throughout the era, characterised by small settlements called trefi, the local landscape was controlled by a local aristocracy and ruled by a warrior aristocrat. Control was exerted over a piece of land and, by extension, many of the people were tenant peasants or slaves, answerable to the aristocrat who controlled the land on which they lived. There was no sense of a coherent tribe of people and everyone, from ruler down to slave, was defined in terms of his or her kindred family and individual status. Christianity had been introduced in the Roman era, and the Celtic Britons living in, the seventh and eighth centuries were characterised by ongoing warfare by the northern and eastern Welsh kingdoms against the intruding Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia. The total area of Wales is 20,779 km2, or 9% of the area of Great Britain, much of the landscape is mountainous with treeless moors and heath, and having large areas with peat deposits. There is approximately 1,200 km of coastline and some 50 offshore islands, the southeastern coast was originally a wetland, but reclamation has been ongoing since the Roman era. There are deposits of gold, copper, lead, silver and zinc, in the Roman era some granite was quarried, as was slate in the north and sandstone in the east and south. Native fauna included large and small mammals, such as the bear, wolf, wildcat, rodents, several species of weasel. There were many species of birds, fish and shellfish, the early medieval human population has always been considered relatively low in comparison to England, but efforts to reliably quantify it have yet to provide widely acceptable results. Much of the land is in the south, southeast, southwest, on Anglesey. However, specifying the ancient usage of land is problematic in that there is surviving evidence on which to base the estimates. Anglesey is the exception, historically producing more grain than any part of Wales. Animal husbandry included the raising of cattle, pigs, sheep, oxen were kept for ploughing, asses for beasts of burden and horses for human transport. The importance of sheep was less than in later centuries, as their extensive grazing in the uplands did not begin until the thirteenth century, the animals were tended by swineherds and herdsmen, but they were not confined, even in the lowlands. Instead open land was used for feeding, and seasonal transhumance was practiced, in addition, bees were kept for the production of honey
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Wales in the High Middle Ages
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Wales in the High Middle Ages covers the 11th to 13th centuries in Welsh history. The aforementioned kingdoms of the south-east seem to have remained isolated until the eleventh century. Throughout this period, the English Saxons exerted some influence over Wales, in the sixth century, the Saxons appear to have attacked Wales, however, relations between the English and the British of Wales were not entirely hostile after these attacks. For some 200 years starting in the century, from the establishment of Mercia, there were sporadic raids. Throughout the tenth century, Davies says, ravagings went on, in Gwynedd, the south-east, in Dyfed, history of Gwynedd during the High Middle Ages Davies, R. R. The Age of Conquest, Wales 1063–1415
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Wales in the Late Middle Ages
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Wales in the Late Middle Ages covers the period from the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in late 1282 to the incorporation of Wales into the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542. After the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, his brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd carried on resistance for a few months and he was captured and executed by hanging, drawing and quartering at Shrewsbury in 1283. King Edward I of England now had control of Wales. The Statute of Rhuddlan was issued from Rhuddlan Castle in north Wales in 1284, the Statute divided parts of Wales into the counties of Anglesey, Merioneth and Caernarvon, created out of the remnants of Llewelyns Gwynedd. It introduced the English common law system, and abolished Welsh law for criminal cases and it allowed the King to appoint royal officials such as sheriffs, coroners, and bailiffs to collect taxes and administer justice. In addition, the offices of justice and chamberlain were created to assist the sheriff, the Marcher Lords retained most of their independence, as they had prior to the conquest. Most of the Marcher Lords were by now Cambro Norman i. e. Norman Welsh through intermarriage. King Edward I built a ring of stone castles to consolidate his the domination of Wales. Wales became, effectively, part of England, even though its people spoke a different language and had a different culture, English kings paid lip service to their responsibilities by appointing a Council of Wales, sometimes presided over by the heir to the throne. This Council normally sat in Ludlow, now in England but at that time part of the disputed border area of the Welsh Marches. Welsh literature, particularly poetry, continued to flourish however, with the lesser nobility now taking over from the princes as the patrons of the poets and bards. Dafydd ap Gwilym who flourished in the middle of the century is considered by many to be the greatest of the Welsh poets. There were a number of rebellions including ones led by Madog ap Llywelyn in 1294-5 and by Llywelyn Bren, Lord of Senghenydd, in 1316-18. In the 1370s the last representative in the line of the ruling house of Gwynedd, Owain Lawgoch. The English government responded to the threat by sending an agent to assassinate Owain in Poitou in 1378, the Black Death arrived in Wales in late 1348. What records survive indicate that about 30% of the population died, in 1400, a Welsh nobleman, Owain Glyndŵr, revolted against King Henry IV of England. Owain inflicted a number of defeats on the English forces and for a few years controlled most of Wales, some of his achievements included holding the first ever Welsh Parliament at Machynlleth and plans for two universities. Eventually the kings forces were able to control of Wales and the rebellion died out. His rebellion caused an upsurge in Welsh identity and he was widely supported by Welsh people throughout the country
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Tudor period
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The Tudor period is the period between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period which ends with the completion of the reign of Elizabeth I in 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII. In terms of the century, Guy argues that England was economically healthier, more expansive. Following the Black Death and the depression of the late 15th century. The export of woollen products resulted in an upturn with products exported to mainland Europe. Henry VII negotiated the favourable Intercursus Magnus treaty in 1496, the high wages and abundance of available land seen in the late 15th century and early 16th century were replaced with low wages and a land shortage. Various inflationary pressures, perhaps due to an influx of New World gold and this was a period of significant change for the majority of the rural population, with manorial lords beginning the process of enclosure. Historian Geoffrey Elton revolutionized the study of Tudor government with his 1953 book The Tudor Revolution in Government and he argued that Thomas Cromwell, who was Henry VIIIs chief minister from 1532 to 1540, was the author of modern, bureaucratic government, which replaced medieval, government-as-household-management. Cromwell introduced reforms into the administration that delineated the Kings household from the state and he injected Tudor power into the darker corners of the realm and radically altered the role of Parliament. This transition happened in the 1530s, Elton argued, and must be regarded as part of a planned revolution, by masterminding these reforms, wrote Elton, Cromwell laid the foundations of Englands future stability and success. However, Eltons thesis has been challenged by recent historians. The Tudor Government raised an amount of revenue from the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The clerical income from First Fruits and Tenths, which went to the Pope. The Tudor Government gained further revenue from the lands by receiving rents from confiscated lands. Altogether, between 1536 and Henrys death, the Government collected £1.3 million, this influx of money caused Cromwell to change the Crowns financial system to manage the money. He created a new department of state and a new official to collect the proceeds of the dissolution, the Court of Augmentations and number of departments meant a growing number of officials, which made the management of revenue troublesome and expensive. Partly because of the new revenue raised from the dissolution of monasteries and these were the six courts or departments of state, each fully organised with its own specialised officials, equipped with seals and habitat, and responsible for a particular kind of revenue. The growing number of departments meant that the number of officials involved increased, there were further financial and administrative difficulties in 1540–58, aggravated by war, debasement, corruption and inefficiency, which were mainly caused by Somerset
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Scotland in the early modern period
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Scotland in the early modern period refers, for the purposes of this article, to Scotland between the death of James IV in 1513 and the end of the Jacobite rebellions in the mid-eighteenth century. It roughly corresponds to the modern period in Europe, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the start of the Enlightenment. Scotland hovered between dominance by the English and French, which ended in the Treaty of Edinburgh 1560, in 1603 he inherited the thrones of England and Ireland, creating a dynastic union and moving the centre of royal patronage and power to London. His son Charles I attempted to impose elements of the English religious settlement on his other kingdoms, relations gradually deteriorated resulting in the Bishops Wars, ending in defeat for Charles and helping to bring about the War of Three Kingdoms. The Scots entered the war in England on the Parliamentary side, the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 saw the return of episcopacy and an increasingly absolutist regime, resulting in religious and political upheaval and rebellions. With the accession of the openly Catholic James VII, there was increasing disquiet among Protestants, after the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89, William of Orange and Mary, the daughter of James, were accepted as monarchs. Presbyterianism was reintroduced and limitations placed on monarchy, after severe economic dislocation in the 1690s there were moves that led to political union with England as the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. Although there was a system of roads in early modern Scotland, it remained a country divided by topography. The local laird emerged as a key figure and the heads of names and clans in the Borders, there was a population expanding towards the end of the period and increasing urbanisation. Social tensions were evident in witch trials and the creation of a system of poor laws, despite the aggrandisement of the crown and the increase in forms of taxation, revenues remained inadequate. The Privy Council and Parliament remained central to government, with changing compositions, the growth of local government saw introduction of Justices of the Peace and Commissioners of Supply, while the law saw the increasing importance of royal authority and professionalisation. The expansion of schools and reform of universities heralded the beginnings of an intellectual flowering in the Enlightenment. There was also a flowering of Scottish literature before the loss of the court as a centre of patronage at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The tradition of music was fundamentally changed by the Reformation. In church architecture a distinctive style based on a T-plan emerged. The death of James IV at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 meant a period of regency in the name of his infant son James V. He finally managed to escape from the custody of the regents in 1528 and began to take revenge on a number of them and he continued his fathers policy of subduing the rebellious Highlands, Western and Northern isles and the troublesome borders. He took punitive measures against the Clan Douglas in the north, summarily executed John Armstrong of Liddesdale and carried out royal progresses to underline his authority
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Victorian era
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The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victorias reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities, the era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe, culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and arts. The end of the saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of political reform, industrial reform. Two especially important figures in period of British history are the prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. Disraeli, favoured by the queen, was a gregarious Conservative and his rival Gladstone, a Liberal distrusted by the Queen, served more terms and oversaw much of the overall legislative development of the era. The population of England and Wales almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, Scotlands population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However, Irelands population decreased sharply, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15 million emigrants departed the UK permanently, in search of a life in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia. During the early part of the era, politics in the House of Commons involved battles between the two parties, the Whigs/Liberals and the Conservatives. These parties were led by such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18. Her long reign until 1901 was mainly a time of peace, Britain reached the zenith of its economic, political, diplomatic and cultural power. The era saw the expansion of the second British Empire, Historians have characterised the mid-Victorian era as Britains Golden Years. There was prosperity, as the income per person grew by half. There was peace abroad, and social peace at home, opposition to the new order melted away, says Porter. The Chartist movement peaked as a movement among the working class in 1848, its leaders moved to other pursuits, such as trade unions
