The formation of Great Britain

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as
the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of
the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The
United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of
Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles.
The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and
separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between
the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of
Scotland in 1707 formed the Kingdom of Great Britain. Its union in 1801 with the Kingdom
of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Most of Ireland seceded
from the UK in 1922, leaving the present United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, which formally adopted that name in 1927.
Settlement by anatomically modern humans of what was to become the United
Kingdom occurred in waves beginning by about 30,000 years ago. By the end of the region's
prehistoric period, the population is thought to have belonged, in the main, to a culture termed
Insular Celtic, comprising Brittonic Britain and Gaelic IrelandThe Roman conquest,
beginning in 43 AD, and the 400-year rule of southern Britain, was followed by an invasion
by Germanic Anglo-Saxon settlers, reducing the Brittonic area mainly to what was to become
Wales, Cornwall and, until the latter stages of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, the Hen Ogledd
(northern England and parts of southern Scotland).
Most of the region settled by the Anglo-Saxons became unified as the Kingdom of
England in the 10th century.Meanwhile, Gaelic-speakers in north-west Britain (with
connections to the north-east of Ireland and traditionally supposed to have migrated from
there in the 5th century. united with the Picts to create the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th
century.
In 1066, the Normans invaded England from northern France. After conquering
England, they seized large parts of Wales, conquered much of Ireland and were invited to
settle in Scotland, bringing to each country feudalism on the Northern French model and
Norman-French culture. The Anglo-Norman ruling class greatly influenced, but eventually
assimilated with, each of the local cultures. Subsequent medieval English kings completed the
conquest of Wales and made unsuccessful attempts to annex Scotland. Asserting its
independence in the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland maintained its independence
thereafter, albeit in near-constant conflict with England.
The Acts of Union 1707 declared that the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of
Scotland were "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". The term "United
Kingdom" has occasionally been used as a description for the former Kingdom of Great
Britain, although its official name from 1707 to 1800 was simply "Great Britain".
 The Great Britain in the Middle Age

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 and many of the towns abandoned. After several centuries of Germanic immigration,
new identities and cultures began to emerge, developing into kingdoms that competed for
power. A rich artistic culture flourished under the Anglo-Saxons, producing epic poems such
as Beowulf and sophisticated metalwork. The Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the
7th century and a network of monasteries and convents were built across England. In the 8th
and 9th centuries England faced fierce Viking attacks, and the fighting lasted for many
decades, eventually establishing Wessex as the most powerful kingdom and promoting the
growth of an English identity. Despite repeated crises of succession and a Danish seizure of
power at the start of the 11th century, it can also be argued that by the 1060s England was a
powerful, centralised state with a strong military and successful economy.
The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to the defeat and replacement of the
Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman and French nobles and their supporters. 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 a feudal
approach to governing England, eradicating the practice of slavery, but creating a much wider
body of unfree labourers called serfs. The position of women in society changed as laws
regarding land and lordship shifted. England's population more than doubled during the 12th
and 13th centuries, fueling an expansion of the towns, cities, and trade, helped by warmer
temperatures across Northern Europe. A new wave of monasteries and friaries was established
while ecclesiastical reforms led to tensions between successive kings and archbishops.
Despite developments in England's governance and legal system, infighting between the
Anglo-Norman elite resulted in multiple civil wars and the loss of Normandy.
The 14th century in England saw the Great Famine and the Black Death, catastrophic
events that killed around half of England's population, throwing the economy into chaos, and
undermining the old political order. Social unrest followed, resulting in the Peasants' Revolt
of 1381, while the changes in the economy resulted in the emergence of a new class of gentry,
and the nobility began to exercise power through a system termed bastard feudalism. Nearly
1,500 villages were deserted by their inhabitants and many men and women sought new
opportunities in the towns and cities. 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, resulting in the Hundred Years' War.
At times England enjoyed huge military success, with the economy buoyed by profits from
the international wool and cloth trade, but by 1450 the country was in crisis, facing military
failure in France and an ongoing recession. More social unrest broke out, followed by the
Wars of the Roses, fought between rival factions of the English nobility. Henry VII's victory
in 1485 conventionally marks the end of the Middle Ages in England and the start of the Early
Modern period.
 The House of Tudor

The House of Tudor was a royal house of largely Welsh and English origin that
held the English throne from 1485 to 1603.[1] They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd
and Catherine of France. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms,
including their ancestral Wales and the Lordship of Ireland (later the Kingdom of Ireland) for
118 years with six monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Jane Grey, Mary I and
Elizabeth I. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of
England, and were succeeded by the House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII of
England, descended through his mother from a legitimised branch of the English royal House
of Lancaster, a cadet house of the Plantagenets. The Tudor family rose to power and started
the Tudor period in the wake of the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), which left the main
House of Lancaster (with which the Tudors were aligned) extinct in the male line.
Henry VII succeeded in presenting himself as a candidate not only for traditional
Lancastrian supporters, but also for discontented supporters of their rival Plantagenet cadet
House of York, and he took the throne by right of conquest. Following his victory at the
Battle of Bosworth Field (22 August 1485), he reinforced his position in 1486 by fulfilling his
1483 vow to marry Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, thus symbolically uniting the
former warring factions of Lancaster and York under the new dynasty (represented by the
Tudor rose). The Tudors extended their power beyond modern England, achieving the full
union of England and the Principality of Wales in 1542 (Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542),
and successfully asserting English authority over the Kingdom of Ireland (proclaimed by the
Crown of Ireland Act 1542). They also maintained the nominal English claim to the Kingdom
of France; although none of them made substance of it, Henry VIII fought wars with France
trying to reclaim that title. After him, his daughter Mary I lost control of all territory in France
permanently with the fall of Calais in 1558.
In total, the Tudor monarchs ruled their domains for just over a century. Henry VIII
(r. 1509–1547) was the only son of Henry VII to live to the age of maturity. Issues around
royal succession (including marriage and the succession rights of women) became major
political themes during the Tudor era, as did the English Reformation in religion, impacting
the future of the Crown. When Elizabeth I died childless, the Scottish House of Stuart
succeeded as England's royal family through the Union of the Crowns of 24 March 1603. The
first Stuart to become King of England (r. 1603–1625), James VI and I, descended from
Henry VII's daughter Margaret Tudor, who in 1503 had married King James IV of Scotland in
accordance with the 1502 Treaty of Perpetual Peace.
The Tudors descended from King Edward III on Henry VII's mother's side from
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, one of the children of the 14th century English prince
John of Gaunt, the third surviving son of Edward III. Beaufort's mother was Gaunt's long-term
mistress Katherine Swynford. The descendants of an illegitimate child of English royalty
would normally have no claim on the throne, although Gaunt and Swynford eventually
married in 1396, when John Beaufort was 25. The church then retroactively declared the
Beauforts legitimate by way of a papal bull the same year, confirmed by an Act of Parliament
in 1397. A subsequent proclamation by John of Gaunt's son by his earlier wife Blanche of
Lancaster, King Henry IV, also recognised the Beauforts' legitimacy but declared the line
ineligible for the throne. Nevertheless, the Beauforts remained closely allied with Gaunt's
descendants from his first marriage, the House of Lancaster, during the civil wars known as
the Wars of the Roses.
 English civil war

The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political
machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I
("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of religious
freedom.[2] It was part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The first (1642–1646) and
second (1648–1649) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the
Long Parliament, while the third (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King
Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The wars also involved the Scottish
Covenanters and Irish Confederates. The war ended with Parliamentarian victory at the Battle
of Worcester on 3 September 1651.
Unlike other civil wars in England, which were mainly fought over who should rule,
these conflicts were also concerned with how the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland and
Ireland should be governed. The outcome was threefold: the trial of and execution of Charles
I (1649); the exile of his son, Charles II (1651); and the replacement of English monarchy
with the Commonwealth of England. From 1653 the Commonwealth of England, Scotland,
and Ireland unified the British Isles under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658),
and briefly his son Richard (1658–1659).
In England, the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship was
ended, and in Ireland, the victors consolidated the established Protestant Ascendancy.
Constitutionally, the outcome of the wars established the precedent that an English monarch
cannot govern without Parliament's consent, though the idea of Parliamentary sovereignty was
legally established only as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688.
Many officers and veteran soldiers had fought in European wars, notably the Eighty
Years' War between the Spanish and the Dutch, which began in 1568, as well as earlier phases
of the Thirty Years' War which began in 1618 and concluded in 1648.
The war was of unprecedented scale for the English. During the campaign seasons, 120,000 to
150,000 soldiers would be in the field, a higher proportion of the population than were
fighting in Germany in the Thirty Years' War.
The main battle tactic came to be known as pike and shot infantry. The two sides
would line up opposite one another, with infantry brigades of musketeers in the centre. These
carried matchlock muskets, an inaccurate weapon which nevertheless could be lethal at a
range of up to 300 yards. Musketeers would assemble three rows deep, the first kneeling,
second crouching, and third standing. At times, troops divided into two groups, allowing one
to reload while the other fired. Among the musketeers were pike men, carrying pikes of 12
feet (4 m) to 18 feet (5 m) long, whose main purpose was to protect the musketeers from
cavalry charges. Positioned on each side of the infantry were cavalry, with a right wing led by
the lieutenant-general and left by the commissary general. Its main aim was to rout the
opponents' cavalry, then turn and overpower their infantry.
The Royalist cavaliers' skill and speed on horseback led to many early victories.
Prince Rupert, commanding the king's cavalry, used a tactic learned while fighting in the
Dutch army, where cavalry would charge at full speed into the opponent's infantry, firing their
pistols just before impact.
However, with Oliver Cromwell and the introduction of the more disciplined New
Model Army, a group of disciplined pike men would stand its ground, which could have a
devastating effect. The Royalist cavalry had a tendency to chase down individual targets after
the initial charge, leaving their forces scattered and tired, whereas Cromwell's cavalry was
slower but better disciplined.
 Victorian era

In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was
the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.
The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period, and its later half
overlaps with the first part of the Belle Époque era of Continental Europe.
There was a strong religious drive for higher moral standards led by the
nonconformist churches, such as the Methodists and the evangelical wing of the established
Church of England. Ideologically, the Victorian era witnessed resistance to the rationalism
that defined the Georgian period, and an increasing turn towards romanticism and even
mysticism in religion, social values, and arts. This era saw a staggering amount of
technological innovations that proved key to Britain's power and prosperity. Doctors started
moving away from tradition and mysticism towards a science-based approach; medicine
advanced thanks to the adoption of the germ theory of disease and pioneering research in
epidemiology.
Domestically, the political agenda was increasingly liberal, with a number of shifts in
the direction of gradual political reform, improved social reform, and the widening of the
franchise. There were unprecedented demographic changes: the population of England and
Wales almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, and Scotland's
population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However,
Ireland's population decreased sharply, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in
1901, mostly due to emigration and the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15
million emigrated from Great Britain, mostly to the United States, as well as to imperial
outposts in Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. Thanks to educational
reforms, the British population not only approached universal literacy towards the end of the
era but also became increasingly well-educated; the market for reading materials of all kinds
boomed.
Britain's relations with the other Great Powers were driven by antagonism with
Russia, including the Crimean War and the Great Game. A Pax Britannica of peaceful trade
was maintained by the country's naval and industrial supremacy. Britain embarked on global
imperial expansion, particularly in Asia and Africa, which made the British Empire the largest
empire in history. National self-confidence peaked. Britain granted political autonomy to the
more advanced colonies of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Apart from the Crimean
War, Britain was not involved in any armed conflict with another major power. The two
main political parties during the era remained the Whigs/Liberals and the Conservatives; by
its end, the Labour Party had formed as a distinct political entity. These parties were led by
such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston,
Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, and Lord Salisbury. The unsolved problems relating to
Irish Home Rule played a great part in politics in the later Victorian era, particularly in view
of Gladstone's determination to achieve a political settlement in Ireland.
In the strictest sense, the Victorian era covers the duration of Victoria's reign as
Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, from her accession on 20 June
1837—after the death of her uncle, William IV—until her death on 22 January 1901, after
which she was succeeded by her eldest son, Edward VII. Her reign lasted for 63 years and
seven months, a longer period than any of her predecessors. The term 'Victorian' was in
contemporaneous usage to describe the era.
 British Empire

The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates,

mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its
predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by
England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height it was the largest empire
in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire
held sway over 412 million people, 23 per cent of the world population at the time, and by
1920, it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land
area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the
peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", as the Sun
was always shining on at least one of its territories.
During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain
pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas
empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, and the
Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and
Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left
England (Britain, following the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland) the dominant colonial
power in North America. Britain became the dominant power in the Indian subcontinent after
the East India Company's conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.
The American War of Independence resulted in Britain losing some of its oldest and
most populous colonies in North America by 1783. British attention then turned towards Asia,
Africa, and the Pacific. After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815),
Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century and expanded
its imperial holdings. The period of relative peace (1815–1914) during which the British
Empire became the global hegemon was later described as Pax Britannica ("British Peace").
Alongside the formal control that Britain exerted over its colonies, its dominance of much of
world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many regions, such as Asia
and Latin America. Increasing degrees of autonomy were granted to its white settler colonies,
some of which were reclassified as Dominions.
By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to
challenge Britain's economic lead. Military and economic tensions between Britain and
Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily on its
empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military, financial, and manpower
resources. Although the empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after the
First World War, Britain was no longer the world's preeminent industrial or military power. In
the Second World War, Britain's colonies in East Asia and Southeast Asia were occupied by
the Empire of Japan. Despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British
prestige helped accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britain's most valuable and
populous possession, achieved independence in 1947 as part of a larger decolonisation
movement, in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The Suez
Crisis of 1956 confirmed Britain's decline as a global power, and the transfer of Hong Kong
to China on 1 July 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire. Fourteen overseas
territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British
colonies, along with most of the dominions, joined the Commonwealth of Nations, a free
association of independent states. Fifteen of these, including the United Kingdom, retain a
common monarch, currently King Charles III.
 Representative events and British personalities

One of the remarkable continuities of British history is the absence of fanaticism.

There is no equivalent of the continental tradition of anti-Semitism (the occasional
Plantagenet pogroms being debt repudiation schemes rather than ethnic crusades). There is
surprisingly little Protestant-Catholic violence, despite the Tudor burnings, as most of the
country seemed happy to change with fashion (the French massacres of the Huguenots stand
in contrast to the English preference for punishment by denial of access to Oxford, Cambridge
and Parliament). The one exception to this tradition is the reign of Cromwell whose
combination of martial brilliance and religious fanaticism was as alien to England as it was
effective.
The failure of the Commonwealth shortly after Cromwell’s death marked the end of
absolute rule in England. The democratic institutions, which had existed in some form and
accessible only to the elite since the fourteenth century, were already at that time sufficiently
robust, sufficiently entrenched that their suspension and direct rule have proved beyond any
prospective potentate ever since. The English conceptualisation of liberty as something
expressed in a negative sense (freedom from authority, rather than the continental sense of
national greatness arising through concentrated authority) could now be seen as a meaningful
political force. It was to go on to have a significant influence on world affairs – one of the
significant reasons for which those parts of the Empire populated by expatriates proved so
head-strong and independent was that this government model proved to be equally durable on
foreign soil as at home.
Wellington’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo put to an end French dreams of
European mastery. It confirmed the lesson from Blenheim a century earlier – that Britain was
capable (through a mixture of bribery and naval coercion) to put together land armies capable
of maintaining order in Europe. The failure of Napoleon was also the failure of the
Continental System, and a demonstration that Britain’s trading influence was already so great
that removing her from European markets would affect the continent more than it would
Britain.
The Battle of Waterloo had profound effects for the British. Firstly, it put to an end
the battle over land in Europe, which had lasted from the fall of Rome. Peace would reign
until the Crimea, not a sign that Europe was unimportant, but a sign that land here was now so
important that it could not be won without a holocaust. The next great conflicts in Western
Europe would be total wars, a form in which Britain was very poorly placed to participate
(both in terms of manpower and a liberal political tradition). Secondly, balance in Europe
unleashed the scramble for territories elsewhere – from Africa to the Pacific – which were to
prove both echo points for British civilisation, but also points of little economic contribution
and ingrained strategic overstretch. When the great conflict did arrive, the obligation to guard
all points from Sydney to Gibraltar diluted British battlefield presence and naval advantage.
Finally, the peace that Western Europe now enjoyed until 1870 marked the only real
achievement of that perpetual aim of British foreign policy – a self-sustaining balance of
power in Europe, something never before or after achieved without active British
involvement.
 British modernism

The period from 1901-1939 is often referred to as the Modernist Period. The
Victorian Period ended with the death of Queen Victoria and a change in the political stability
that her rule had guaranteed. Modernism responds to rapid transformations in Western
society, including urbanization, the growth of industry, and World War I. It is a difficult term
to define, but at its most basic, it was an avant-garde movement in literature and art that
sought to break away from ordinary social values, commercialism, and the “genteel” literary
tradition that preceded it. Thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Mach, and Sigmund Freud
greatly influenced this movement. These men challenged traditional ways of thinking,
something that defined the individualism of the Modernist movement. Modernism’s
pessimism was in part the product of the devastation of World War I, which many writers
experienced personally on the battlefield. Much modernist literature is actually antimodern,
registering modernity as an experience of loss. The modernist artist was a critic of the art that
came before him/her as well as the culture of which he/she was a part. At the heart of
modernist art was the belief that the previously sustaining elements of human life, like
religious beliefs, social mores, and artistic convictions, had been destroyed or proven false or
fragile. This sense of fragmentation led to a literature built out of fragments of myth, history,
personal experience, or earlier art.

PRE WORLD WAR I

Although World War I was the largest influence on many poets during the time, some poets
found success much earlier in the period. Thomas Hardy and A.E. Housman are two
examples of this. Both wrote several war poems, with Hardy capturing the viewpoint and
language of soldiers as he detailed the horror of both the Boer Wars and eventually World
War I. An example of this is “The Man He Killed” (1902), a poem that shows two men in
battle, with one feeling regretful about having to shoot the other. In this poem Hardy
comments on the way war can turn potential friends into enemies. Housman had already
found success in writing with his publication of A Shropshire Lad (1896), a collection of 63
poems that captured a deep level of emotional vulnerability. After World War I, he began
writing another collection of poems to commemorate those who had died in war.

WORLD WAR I

World War I is significant because it was the first modern war. It also created social, political,
and economic problems for Great Britain as they incurred heavy debts, and the United States
began emerging as a new national power. World War I marked the beginning of a decline in
Great Britain’s global status. The poetry of the time is representative of that and shows the
deep pessimism of this post-war nation.

The War Poets

World War I inspired a lot of poetry both from soldiers on the battlefield describing their
experiences and war supporters at home, writing enthusiastically about Great Britain’s efforts.
A number of these poets, including Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, and Rupert Brooke,
died on the battlefield. Brooke’s sonnet, “The Soldier” (1914), is a memoir of a deceased
soldier. This poem, as well as several written by these soldier poets, reflected on the death and
accomplishments of those fighting in war. For those who survived the battlefield like
Siegfried Sassoon, Ivor Guerney, and Robert Graves, their experiences had a direct impact
on their poetry. Often in their later works, they would compare the horrors of war with the
peaceful landscape of England they’d always known.