1.
Henry Fox Talbot
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His work in the 1840s on photomechanical reproduction led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. He was the holder of a patent which affected the early development of commercial photography in Britain. He was also a photographer who contributed to the development of photography as an artistic medium. He published The Pencil of Nature, which was illustrated with original salted paper prints from his calotype negatives, and made important early photographs of Oxford, Paris, Reading. Talbot was the child of William Davenport Talbot, of Lacock Abbey, near Chippenham, Wiltshire. Talbot was educated at Rottingdean, Harrow School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded the Porson Prize in Classics in 1820, from 1822 to 1872, he communicated papers to the Royal Society, many of them on mathematical subjects. At an early period, he began optical researches, which bore fruit in connection with photography. At a meeting of the Royal Institution on 25 January 1839, within a fortnight, he communicated the general nature of his process to the Royal Society, followed by more complete details a few weeks later. Daguerre did not publicly reveal any details until mid-August, although by the spring it had become clear that his process. In the case of images, that could require an exposure of an hour or two if something more than a silhouette of objects against a bright sky was wanted. This reduced the exposure time in the camera to only a minute or two for subjects in bright sunlight. The simpler salted paper process was used when making prints from calotype negatives. Talbot announced his calotype process in 1841, and in August he licensed Henry Collen, the most celebrated practitioners of the process were Hill & Adamson. Another notable calotypist was Levett Landon Boscawen Ibbetson, in 1842, Talbot received the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society for his photographic discoveries. In 1852, Talbot discovered that gelatine treated with potassium dichromate and this later provided the basis for the important carbon printing process and related technologies. Dichromated gelatine is still used for some laser holography, Talbots later photographic work was concentrated on photomechanical reproduction methods. Talbot created the engraving process, later perfected by others as the photogravure process. Daguerres work on his process had commenced at about the time as Talbots earliest work on his salted paper process
2.
Wiltshire
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Wiltshire is a county in South West England with an area of 3,485 km2. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, the county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the new county town of Trowbridge. Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys, Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its mediaeval cathedral, important country houses open to the public include Longleat, near Warminster, and the National Trusts Stourhead, near Mere. The county, in the 9th century written as Wiltunscir, later Wiltonshire, is named after the county town of Wilton. Wiltshire is notable for its pre-Roman archaeology, the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age people that occupied southern Britain built settlements on the hills and downland that cover Wiltshire. Stonehenge and Avebury are perhaps the most famous Neolithic sites in the UK, in the 6th and 7th centuries Wiltshire was at the western edge of Saxon Britain, as Cranborne Chase and the Somerset Levels prevented the advance to the west. The Battle of Bedwyn was fought in 675 between Escuin, a West Saxon nobleman who had seized the throne of Queen Saxburga, in 878 the Danes invaded the county. Following the Norman Conquest, large areas of the country came into the possession of the crown, at the time of the Domesday Survey the industry of Wiltshire was largely agricultural,390 mills are mentioned, and vineyards at Tollard and Lacock. In the 17th century English Civil War Wiltshire was largely Parliamentarian, the Battle of Roundway Down, a Royalist victory, was fought near Devizes. The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry currently lives on as Y Squadron, based in Swindon, around 1800 the Kennet and Avon Canal was built through Wiltshire, providing a route for transporting cargoes from Bristol to London until the development of the Great Western Railway. Information on the 261 civil parishes of Wiltshire is available on the Wiltshire Community History website, run by the Libraries and this site includes maps, demographic data, historic and modern pictures and short histories. The local nickname for Wiltshire natives is moonrakers and this originated from a story of smugglers who managed to foil the local Excise men by hiding their alcohol, possibly French brandy in barrels or kegs, in a village pond. The officials took them for simple yokels or mad and left them alone, many villages claim the tale for their own village pond, but the story is most commonly linked with The Crammer in Devizes. Two-thirds of Wiltshire, a rural county, lies on chalk. This chalk is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group, the largest area of chalk in Wiltshire is Salisbury Plain, which is used mainly for arable agriculture and by the British Army as training ranges. The highest point in the county is the Tan Hill–Milk Hill ridge in the Pewsey Vale, just to the north of Salisbury Plain, the chalk uplands run northeast into West Berkshire in the Marlborough Downs ridge, and southwest into Dorset as Cranborne Chase. Cranborne Chase, which straddles the border, has, like Salisbury Plain, yielded much Stone Age, the Marlborough Downs are part of the North Wessex Downs AONB, a 1,730 km2 conservation area
3.
Augustinians
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The term Augustinians, named after Augustine of Hippo, applies to two distinct types of Catholic religious orders and some Anglican religious orders. Within Anglicanism the Rule of St Augustine is followed only by women, Augustine, a brief document providing guidelines for living in a religious community. The largest and most familiar, originally known as the Hermits of Saint Augustine, two other Orders, the Order of Augustinian Recollects and the Discalced Augustinians, were once part of the Augustinian Order under a single Prior General. The Recollect friars, founded in 1588 as a movement of the Augustinian friars in Spain, became autonomous in 1612 with their first Prior General. The Discalced friars became an independent congregation with their own Prior General in 1592 and they generally form one large community, which might serve parishes in the vicinity, and are organized into autonomous congregation, which normally are distinct by region. In a religious community, charism is the contribution that each religious order, congregation or family. The teaching and writing of Augustine, the Augustinian Rule, and it does not unduly single out the exceptional, especially favour the gifted, nor exclude the poor or marginalised. Love is not earned through human merit, but received and given freely by Gods free gift of grace and these same imperatives of affection and fairness have driven the order in its international missionary outreach. This balanced pursuit of love and learning has energised the various branches of the order into building communities founded on mutual affection, Augustine spoke passionately of Gods beauty so ancient and so new, and his fascination with beauty extended to music. He taught that to sing once is to pray twice and music is also a key part of the Augustinian ethos, the Canons Regular follow the more ancient form of religious life which developed toward the end of the first millennium and thus predates the founding of the friars. They represent a clerical adaptation of life, as it grew out of an attempt to organize communities of clerics to a more dedicated way of life. Historically it paralleled the lay movement of monasticism or the life from which the friars were later to develop. In their tradition, the added the commitment of religious vows to their primary vocation of pastoral care. As the canons became independent of the structures, they came to form their own monastic communities. The official name of the Order is the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, like the Order of Saint Benedict, it is not one legal body, but a union of various independent congregations. Though they also follow the Rule of St. Augustine, they differ from the friars in not committing themselves to corporate poverty, which is a defining element of the mendicant orders. Unlike the friars and like monks, the canon are generally organized as one community to which they are attached for life with a vow of stability. Their houses are given the title of an abbey, from which the canons then serve various surrounding towns, the religious superior of their major houses is titled an abbot
4.
Dissolution of the Monasteries
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Although the policy was originally envisaged as increasing the regular income of the Crown, much former monastic property was sold off to fund Henrys military campaigns in the 1540s. Professor George W. Bernard argues, The dissolution of the monasteries in the late 1530s was one of the most revolutionary events in English history. one adult man in fifty was in religious orders. Very few English houses had been founded later than the end of the 13th century, there was a Medieval proverb in England that said if the Abbot of Glastonbury married the Abbess of Shaftesbury, the heir would have more land than the King of England. The 200 houses of friars in England and Wales constituted a distinct wave of foundations almost all occurring in the 13th century. Friaries, for the most part, were concentrated in urban areas, however, the religious changes in England under Henry VIII and Edward VI were of a different nature from those taking place in Germany, Bohemia, France, Scotland and Geneva. Bernard says there was concern in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries about the condition of the monasteries. Pastoral care was seen as more important and vital than the monastic focus on contemplation, prayer. English monasticism in the 1530s may have faced grave and urgent problems, Henry wanted to change this, and in November 1529 Parliament passed Acts reforming apparent abuses in the English Church. These Acts sought to demonstrate that establishing royal jurisdiction over the Church would ensure progress in religious reformation where papal authority had been insufficient, the monasteries were next in line. The stories of monastic impropriety, vice and excess that were to be collected by Thomas Cromwells visitors may have been biased and exaggerated. Levels of monastic debt were increasing, and average numbers of professed religious were falling, only a minority of houses could now support the twelve or thirteen professed religious usually regarded as the minimum necessary to maintain the full canonical hours of the Divine Office. Extensive monastic complexes dominated English towns of any size, but most were less than half full, renaissance princes throughout Europe were facing severe financial difficulties due to sharply rising expenditures, especially to pay for armies, fighting ships and fortifications. Most tended, sooner or later, to resort to plundering monastic wealth, protestant princes would justify this by claiming divine authority, Catholic princes would obtain the agreement and connivance of the Papacy. Monastic wealth, regarded everywhere as excessive and idle, offered a standing temptation for cash-strapped secular, in terms of popular esteem however, the balance tilted the other way. By the time Henry VIII turned his mind to the business of monastery reform, the first case was that of the so-called Alien Priories. As a result of the Norman Conquest some French religious orders held substantial property through their daughter monasteries in England, some of these were merely granges, agricultural estates with a single foreign monk in residence to supervise things, others were rich foundations in their own right. Such estates were a source of income for the Crown in its French wars. If the property with which a house had been endowed by its founder were to be confiscated or surrendered, then the house ceased to exist, whether its members continued in the religious life or not
5.
English Civil War
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The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists over, principally, the manner of Englands government. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. The term English Civil War appears most often in the singular form, the war in all these countries are known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Unlike other civil wars in England, which focused on who should rule, this war was more concerned with the manner in which the kingdoms of England, Scotland, the two sides had their geographical strongholds, such that minority elements were silenced or fled. The strongholds of the royalty included the countryside, the shires, on the other hand, all the cathedral cities sided with Parliament. All the industrial centers, the ports, and the advanced regions of southern and eastern England typically were parliamentary strongholds. Lacey Baldwin Smith says, the words populist, rich, at times there would be two groups of three lines allowing one group to reload while the other group arranged themselves and fired. Mixed in among the musketeers were pikemen carrying pikes that were between 12 feet and 18 feet long, whose purpose was to protect the musketeers from cavalry charges. The Royalist cavaliers skill and speed on horseback led to early victories. While the Parliamentarian cavalry were slower than the cavaliers, they were better disciplined. The Royalists had a tendency to chase down individual targets after the initial charge leaving their forces scattered and tired, Cromwells cavalry, on the other hand, trained to operate as a single unit, which led to many decisive victories. The English Civil War broke out fewer than forty years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, in spite of this, James personal extravagance meant he was perennially short of money and had to resort to extra-Parliamentary sources of income. Charles hoped to unite the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland into a new single kingdom, many English Parliamentarians had suspicions regarding such a move because they feared that setting up a new kingdom might destroy the old English traditions which had bound the English monarchy. As Charles shared his fathers position on the power of the crown, at the time, the Parliament of England did not have a large permanent role in the English system of government. Instead, Parliament functioned as an advisory committee and was summoned only if. Once summoned, a continued existence was at the kings pleasure. Yet in spite of this role, Parliament had, over the preceding centuries. Without question, for a monarch, Parliaments most indispensable power was its ability to tax revenues far in excess of all other sources of revenue at the Crowns disposal
6.
Devizes
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Devizes /dᵻˈvaɪzᵻz/ is a market town and civil parish in the heart of Wiltshire, England. Standing on a hill at the east edge of the Vale of Pewsey, Devizes serves as a centre for banks, solicitors and shops and has an open market place where a market is held once a week. It has nearly five hundred listed buildings, some churches, a Town Hall. Its development has grown around the 11th century Norman castle, Devizes Castle was built by Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury in 1080, but the town is not mentioned in the Domesday Book. Because the castle was on the boundaries of the manors of Rowde, Bishops Cannings and Potterne it became known as the castrum ad divisas, on John Speeds map of Wiltshire, the towns name is recorded as The Devyses. The first castle on the site was of the motte and bailey form and was made of wood and earth. A new castle was built in stone by Roger of Salisbury, Devizes received its first charter in 1141 permitting regular markets. The castle changed several times during the civil war between Stephen of Blois and Matilda in the 12th century. The castle held important prisoners, including Robert Curthose, eldest son of William the Conqueror, the town has had churches since the 12th century and today has four Church of England parish churches. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the town of Devizes developed outside the castle with craftsmen, the first known market in Devizes was in 1228. The original market was in the space outside St Mary’s Church, rather than in the current Market Place. The chief products in the 16th and early 17th centuries were wheat, wool and yarn, with cheese, bacon, in 1643, during the English Civil War, Parliamentary forces under Sir William Waller besieged Royalist forces under Sir Ralph Hopton in Devizes. However the siege was lifted by a force from Oxford under Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester. Devizes remained under Royalist control until 1645, when Oliver Cromwell attacked and forced the Royalists to surrender, the castle was destroyed in 1648 on the orders of Parliament, a process known as slighting, and today little remains of it. From the 16th century Devizes became known for its textiles, initially white woollen broadcloth but later the manufacture of serge, drugget, felt and cassimere or Zephyr cloth. In the early 18th century Devizes held the largest corn market in the West Country of England and also traded hops, cattle, horses and various types of cloth. Before the Corn Exchange was built in 1857, the trade in wheat and barley was conducted in the open, with sacks piled around the market cross. Todays cross displays the salutary tale of Ruth Pierce, accused of cheating some buyers at the market, The coroner, John Clare, wool merchants were able to build prosperous town houses in St. Johns and Long Street and around the market place
7.
Brewery
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A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse. The commercial brewing of beer has taken place since at least 2500 BC, in ancient Mesopotamia, brewers derived social sanction, the diversity of size in breweries is matched by the diversity of processes, degrees of automation, and kinds of beer produced in breweries. A brewery is typically divided into sections, with each section reserved for one part of the brewing process. Beer may have known in Neolithic Europe and was mainly brewed on a domestic scale. In some form, it can be traced back almost 5000 years to Mesopotamian writings describing daily rations of beer and bread to workers. Before the rise of production breweries, the production of beer took place at home and was the domain of women and this industrialization of brewing shifted the responsibility of making beer to men. The oldest, still functional, brewery in the world is believed to be the German state-owned Weihenstephan brewery in the city of Freising and it can trace its history back to 1040 AD. The nearby Weltenburg Abbey brewery, can trace back its beer-brewing tradition to at least 1050 AD, the Žatec brewery in the Czech Republic claims it can prove that it paid a beer tax in 1004 AD. This layout often is preserved in breweries today, but mechanical pumps allow more flexibility in brewery design, early breweries typically used large copper vats in the brewhouse, and fermentation and packaging took place in lined wooden containers. Such breweries were common until the Industrial Revolution, when better materials became available, today, almost all brewery equipment is made of stainless steel. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, a handful of major breakthroughs have led to the modern brewery and its ability to produce the same beer consistently. The steam engine, vastly improved in 1775 by James Watt, brought automatic stirring mechanisms and it gave brewers the ability to mix liquids more reliably while heating, particularly the mash, to prevent scorching, and a quick way to transfer liquid from one container to another. Almost all breweries now use electric-powered stirring mechanisms and pumps, the steam engine also allowed the brewer to make greater quantities of beer, as human power was no longer a limiting factor in moving and stirring. Carl von Linde, along with others, is credited with developing the machine in 1871. Refrigeration allowed beer to be produced year-round, and always at the same temperature, yeast is very sensitive to temperature, and, if a beer were produced during summer, the yeast would impart unpleasant flavours onto the beer. Most brewers would produce enough beer during winter to last through the summer, the discovery of microbes by Louis Pasteur was instrumental in the control of fermentation. The idea that yeast was a microorganism that worked on wort to produce led to the isolation of a single yeast cell by Emil Christian Hansen
8.
Bakery
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A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who wish to consume the baked goods on the premises, baked goods have been around for thousands of years. The art of baking was developed early during the Roman Empire and it was a highly famous art as Roman citizens loved baked goods and demanded for them frequently for important occasions such as feasts and weddings etc. Due to the fame and desire that the art of baking received, around 300 BC, baking was introduced as an occupation, the bakers began to prepare bread at home in an oven, using mills to grind grain into the flour for their breads. The oncoming demand for baked goods vigorously continued and the first bakers guild was established in 168 BC in Rome and this drastic appeal for baked goods promoted baking all throughout Europe and expanded into the eastern parts of Asia. Bakers started baking breads and goods at home and selling out on the streets. This trend became common and soon, baked products were getting sold in streets of Rome, Germany, London and this resulted in a system of delivering the goods to households, as the demand for baked breads and goods significantly increased. This provoked the bakers to establish a place people could purchase baked goods for themselves. Therefore, in Paris, the first open-air bakery of baked goods was developed and since then, bakeries became a place to purchase delicious goods. By the colonial era, bakeries were commonly viewed as places to gather, world War II directly affected bread industries in the UK. Baking schools closed during this time so when the war did eventually end there was an absence of skilled bakers and this resulted in new methods being developed to satisfy the world’s desire for bread. Methods like, adding chemicals to dough, premixes and specialised machinery, unfortunately these old methods of baking were almost completely eradicated when these new methods were introduced and became industrialised. The old methods were seen as unnecessary and financially unsound, during this period there were not many traditional bakeries left, some bakeries provide services for special occasions or for people who have allergies or sensitivities to certain foods. Bakeries can provide a range of cakes designs such as sheet cakes, layer cakes, tiered cakes. Grocery stores and supermarkets, in countries, sell prepackaged or pre-sliced bread, cakes. They can also offer in-store baking and basic cake decoration
9.
Photography
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Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. With an electronic sensor, this produces an electrical charge at each pixel. A negative image on film is used to photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a print. The word photography was created from the Greek roots φωτός, genitive of φῶς, light and γραφή representation by means of lines or drawing, several people may have coined the same new term from these roots independently. Johann von Maedler, a Berlin astronomer, is credited in a 1932 German history of photography as having used it in an article published on 25 February 1839 in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung. Both of these claims are now widely reported but apparently neither has ever been confirmed as beyond reasonable doubt. Credit has traditionally given to Sir John Herschel both for coining the word and for introducing it to the public. Photography is the result of combining several technical discoveries, later Greek mathematicians Aristotle and Euclid also independently described a pinhole camera in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. Daniele Barbaro described a diaphragm in 1566, wilhelm Homberg described how light darkened some chemicals in 1694. The fiction book Giphantie, published in 1760, by French author Tiphaigne de la Roche, the discovery of the camera obscura that provides an image of a scene dates back to ancient China. Leonardo da Vinci mentions natural camera obscura that are formed by dark caves on the edge of a sunlit valley, a hole in the cave wall will act as a pinhole camera and project a laterally reversed, upside down image on a piece of paper. So the birth of photography was primarily concerned with inventing means to capture, renaissance painters used the camera obscura which, in fact, gives the optical rendering in color that dominates Western Art. The camera obscura literally means dark chamber in Latin and it is a box with a hole in it which allows light to go through and create an image onto the piece of paper. Around the year 1800, British inventor Thomas Wedgwood made the first known attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive substance and he used paper or white leather treated with silver nitrate. The shadow images eventually darkened all over, the first permanent photoetching was an image produced in 1822 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce, but it was destroyed in a later attempt to make prints from it. Niépce was successful again in 1825, in 1826 or 1827, he made the View from the Window at Le Gras, the earliest surviving photograph from nature. Because Niépces camera photographs required a long exposure, he sought to greatly improve his bitumen process or replace it with one that was more practical. With an eye to eventual commercial exploitation, the partners opted for total secrecy, Daguerres efforts culminated in what would later be named the daguerreotype process
10.
Listed building
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A listed building or listed structure, in the United Kingdom, is one that has been placed on the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. The statutory bodies maintaining the list are Historic England in England, Cadw in Wales, Historic Scotland in Scotland, however, the preferred term in Ireland is protected structure. In England and Wales, an amenity society must be notified of any work to a listed building which involves any element of demolition. Owners of listed buildings are, in circumstances, compelled to repair and maintain them. When alterations are permitted, or when listed buildings are repaired or maintained, slightly different systems operate in each area of the United Kingdom, though the basic principles of the listing remain the same. It was the damage to caused by German bombing during World War II that prompted the first listing of buildings that were deemed to be of particular architectural merit. The listings were used as a means of determining whether a building should be rebuilt if it was damaged by bombing. Listing was first introduced into Northern Ireland under the Planning Order 1972, the listing process has since developed slightly differently in each part of the UK. In the UK, the process of protecting the historic environment is called ‘designation’. A heritage asset is a part of the environment that is valued because of its historic. Only some of these are judged to be important enough to have legal protection through designation. However, buildings that are not formally listed but still judged as being of heritage interest are still regarded as being a consideration in the planning process. Almost anything can be listed – it does not have to be a building, Buildings and structures of special historic interest come in a wide variety of forms and types, ranging from telephone boxes and road signs, to castles. Historic England has created twenty broad categories of structures, and published selection guides for each one to aid with assessing buildings and these include historical overviews and describe the special considerations for listing each category. Both Historic Scotland and Cadw produce guidance for owners, in England, to have a building considered for listing or delisting, the process is to apply to the secretary of state, this can be done by submitting an application form online to Historic England. The applicant does not need to be the owner of the building to apply for it to be listed, full information including application form guidance notes are on the Historic England website. Historic England assesses buildings put forward for listing or delisting and provides advice to the Secretary of State on the architectural, the Secretary of State, who may seek additional advice from others, then decides whether or not to list or delist the building. In England and Wales the authority for listing is granted to the Secretary of State by the Planning Act 1990, Listed buildings in danger of decay are listed on the Historic England Heritage at Risk Register
11.
Henry II of England
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Henry was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mothers efforts to claim the throne of England, then occupied by Stephen of Blois and he inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had recently been annulled. Stephen agreed to a treaty after Henrys military expedition to England in 1153. Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his royal grandfather, Henrys desire to reform the relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Beckets murder in 1170, Henry soon came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a cold war over several decades. By 1172, he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the half of Ireland and the western half of France. Henry and Eleanor had eight children, as they grew up, tensions over the future inheritance of the empire began to emerge, encouraged by Louis and his son King Philip II. In 1173 Henrys heir apparent, Young Henry, rebelled in protest, he was joined by his brothers Richard and Geoffrey and by their mother, France, Scotland, Flanders, and Boulogne allied themselves with the rebels. The Great Revolt was only defeated by Henrys vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them new men appointed for their loyalty, Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183, resulting in Young Henrys death. The Norman invasion of Ireland provided lands for his youngest son John, Philip successfully played on Richards fears that Henry would make John king, and a final rebellion broke out in 1189. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from an ulcer, Henry retreated to Chinon in Anjou. Henrys empire quickly collapsed during the reign of his youngest son John, many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule, however, had long-term consequences. Historical interpretations of Henrys reign have changed considerably over time, in the 18th century, scholars argued that Henry was a driving force in the creation of a genuinely English monarchy and, ultimately, a unified Britain. Late-20th-century historians have combined British and French historical accounts of Henry, Henry was born in France at Le Mans on 5 March 1133 as the eldest child of the Empress Matilda and her second husband, Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou. In theory, the county answered to the French king, but royal power over Anjou weakened during the 11th century, Henrys mother, firstly married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, was the eldest daughter of Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy. She was born into a ruling class of Normans, who traditionally owned extensive estates in both England and Normandy. Geoffrey took advantage of the confusion to attack the Duchy of Normandy but played no role in the English conflict, leaving this to Matilda and her half-brother. The war, termed the Anarchy by Victorian historians, dragged on, Henry probably spent some of his earliest years in his mothers household, and accompanied Matilda to Normandy in the late 1130s
