The Celts migrated to Britain from north-west Germany between 2000 and 1200 BC. The first of settlers occuped the northetn part of the island while later waves settled in the south. They organised themselves in tribes, lived in villages and
Adrian's wall |
were mainly farmers.
The Romans forst came to Britain under Julius Cesar in 55 BC, but extensive Roman colonisation of Britain took place almost one hundred years later under Emperor Claudius in 43 AD. The Romans settled in the south and central parts of the island. In 122 AD they built a 120 km long wall, called Hadrian's wall, in honour of Emperor Hadrian, to defend themselves from the Celtic tribes that had retrated to Scotland.
| When the Roman legions left Britain in 454 AD, successive waves of barbarian tribes inveded the country> the Angels, Saxons and Jutes came from Germanic territories while the Vikings came from Scandinavia. |
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| Finally, in 1066 William, Duke of Normady, crossed the English Channel, defeated Harol, the Soxon king, at the Battle of Hastings, and became king with the name of William I or William the Conqueror. |
The Middle Ages and the Renaissance
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Throughout the Middle Ages England adopted the feudal system with the king exercising absolute power.
At the end of a power struggle between the monarchy and the barons King John Lackland, in 1215, signed the Magna Carta, whichlimited the power of the monarchy. This historic event marked a firs step in the long road towards democracy. In 1338, under the reign of Edward III the Hundred Years' War with France began.
This lasteed until 1453. Before the war, English kings held vast lands in France, but by its end the only remaning English possession in Frane was the port of Calais.
In 1455, a bloody civil war to gain the right to rule England broke out between the House of York and House of Lancaster. The War of the Rose, as it was known, ended with the Battle of Boswarth in 1485 when Henry Tudor defested and killed Richard III and became King Henry VII. This victory brought the Tudor dynasty to hte English throne. The mostimportant representatives of the Tudors were Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. |
The Tudors
The reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547) was dominated by a clash between the Englis crown and the Church of Rome. When Henry VIII realised that his life, Catherine of Aragon, could not giv a male seccessor, he asked the Pope to annul his marriage. |
| The Pope refused, so Henry decided to abolish papal power in England and under the Act of Supremacy in 1534 he declared himself Head of the Church of England. |
| Elizabeth I (1558-1603), the daugther of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second of six wives, was one of the most successfull and best-loved monarchs in English history. She united the nation and ambarked on a golden age of international trade, exploration, military succes and artistic development. During her reign, England built up its naval power, defeated the Spanish Invincible Armada in 1588 and founded colonies in America. |
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