| History Of The United Kingdom |
Article Index for History Of |
Website Links For History |
Information AboutHistory Of The United Kingdom |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT HISTORY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM | |
| history of the united kingdom | |
| national histories | |
| united kingdomhistory of the united kingdom | |
| national histories | |
| united kingdom | |
| history by country | |
| united kingdom | |
| history of europe | |
|
The United Kingdom is the Sovereign State or Realm that covers England , Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland and which for over one hundred years included the whole of the island of Ireland . The state actually began to take its present shape with the Acts Of Union 1707 , which united the Parliament Of England and the Parliament Of Scotland to create a "'' United Kingdom Of Great Britain ''". Subsequently, the Act Of Union 1800 joined the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom Of Ireland to create the "''United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland''". In 1922, the Irish Free State gained independence, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. As a result, since 1927 the United Kingdom's formal title has been "''The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland''". =Conquests and unions before 1800= ENGLAND'S CONQUEST OF WALES Mediæval Wales was rarely united but was under the rule of various native principalities. When the land-hungry Normans invaded England, they naturally started pushing into the relatively weak Welsh Marches , setting up a number of lordships in the Eastern part of the country and the border areas. In response, the usually fractious Welsh, who still retained control of the north and west of Wales, started to unite around leaders such as Llywelyn The Great . In 1282, King Edward I (1272-1307) finally conquered the last remaining native Welsh principalities in north and west Wales (an area roughly corresponding to the present day counties of Anglesey , Caernarfonshire , Merionethshire , Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire ). The Statute Of Rhuddlan formally established Edward's rule over Wales two years later. To appease the Welsh, Edward's son (later Edward II ), who had been born in Wales, was made Prince Of Wales on 7 February 1301 . Wales therefore took the status of Principality, which it held officially between 1284 and 1536. The tradition of bestowing the style 'Prince of Wales' on the eldest son of the British Monarch continues to the present day. Between 1284 and 1536, the Crown only had direct control over the principality, as the Marcher lords (ruling over independent lordships in the east and south of Wales) were independent from direct Crown control. An act of 1535 completed the political and administrative union of England and Wales. The Laws In Wales Act 1535 annexed Wales to the legal system of England, and partitioned the Marches into the Counties of Brecon , Denbigh , Monmouth Montgomery and Radnor while adding parts to Gloucester , Hereford and Salop . (The subsequent Laws in Wales Act of 1542 made no mention of Monmouthshire, which has led to ambiguity about its status as part of England or Wales.) The Act also extended the Law of England to both England and Wales, making English the language to be used for official purposes. This excluded most native Welsh from any formal office. Wales was also now represented in Parliament at Westminster. ENGLISH CONQUEST OF IRELAND The conquest of Ireland began in 1169 under Henry II (1154-89). At first, it was not strictly an English conquest, as it was launched by a small group of Normans who were neither English nor acting on behalf of the English Crown. A dispossessed Norman baron from Wales, Richard FitzGilbert De Clare ('Strongbow') teamed up with the exiled Irish king, Diarmuid MacMorrough , to help him recover his kingdom of Leinster . The Normans consequently gained a territorial foothold in Ireland, capturing Dublin in 1170. The success of Strongbow alarmed Henry II , who was worried that he was becoming too powerful. Henry invaded Ireland himself in 1171. Dublin and the surrounding area came under his control. In 1541, the Irish Parliament was ordered to change the status of Ireland to a kingdom, with King Henry VIII (1509-47) as its monarch; Henry, regarding the way he styled himself as beyond the law of Parliament,and began to style himself as King Of Ireland the next year. This created a union of the Crowns, . For the remainder of the 16th century, the Tudor monarchs expanded their control over Ireland from the small Pale around Dublin to control over the whole island by 1603. The Tudor Re-conquest Of Ireland saw large-scale violence, culminating in the Desmond Rebellions and the Nine Years War . Another feature of the sixteenth century was the creation of English Plantations Of Ireland , which attempted to extend English influence further into Ireland by confiscating land from Irish landowners and "planting" colonies of English settlers in their place. THE UNION OF TWO CROWNS Scotland was an independent Kingdom that resisted English rule. Scotland, because of its climate, tended to be poorer than its southern neighbour. However, the " Auld Alliance " with France made successive English governments very nervous, and the perceived need to separate Scotland from Catholic France was one of the driving forces in English policy towards Scotland and in the Scottish Reformation . The Scottish Reformation saw a clash between the ''old'' religion ( Roman Catholicism ) and the ''new'' (the Church Of Scotland , known as Presbyterianism ). The controversial Catholic Queen of Scotland, Mary I (known popularly as 'Mary, Queen of Scots') was forced to abdicate and fled to England, leaving her infant son, James VI , to rule, guided by Protestant guardians. She was a figure of intrigue who, because of doubts among English Catholics about the legality of Henry VIII 's marriage to Anne Boleyn , was seen by many as a more legitimate heir to the English throne than her Protestant cousin Queen Elizabeth I . Mary's great-grandfather was Elizabeth's own grandfather Henry VII by an earlier marriage alliance between England and Scotland. Elizabeth put her cousin under House Arrest and eventually, amid rumours of a plot to overthrow her, had her executed on charges of treason. James VI succeeded his cousin Elizabeth I and assumed the title James I Of England in 1603. The Stuarts now reigned as the royal family of "Great Britain" 2 , although the two realms maintained separate parliaments. The Union Of The Two Crowns had begun. In the ensuing 100 years, strong religious and political differences continued to divide the kingdoms, and common royalty could not prevent occasions of internecine warfare. REPUBLICAN RULE 1649 The accession of James VI/I's son, Charles I , in 1625 marked the beginning of an intense schism between King and Parliament. Charles's adherence to the doctrine of the Divine Right Of Kings fuelled a vicious battle for supremacy between king and Parliament. The crisis culminated in the English Civil War (1643-49), saw Charles's Execution and ushered in a period of rule as a Parliamentary Commonwealth (1649-53) followed by a period of personal rule under the Parliamentarian veteran Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector . The new regime remained unpopular, however, and Cromwell's death left a political void which could not be filled, even by his son Richard who ruled from 1658-59 before a tentative reversion to the system prior to Cromwell's Protectorate. Ultimately, the will for political stability impelled Parliament to negotiate the Restoration Of The Monarchy in the person of Charles's son, Charles II . The period from the earliest crises between Charles I and Parliament in the 1620s until the Restoration in 1660 is now increasingly referred to by historians as the English Revolution. The Commonwealth period also saw Ireland and Scotland annexed by England and their legislative autonomy abolished. Ireland in particular was permanently altered by the civil war period, as its native Irish Catholic landowning class was dispossessed after the Cromwellian Conquest and replaced with a British Protestant ruling class. Both Ireland and Scotland had their nominal autonomy from London restored after the Restoration. Nevertheless, the era of the Wars Of The Three Kingdoms went a long way towards establishing English primacy over the other two Kingdoms in the Stuart monarchy. THE ACT OF UNION 1707 ''Main article: Act Of Union 1707 '' Deeper political integration was policy of Queen Anne (1702-14), who succeeded to the throne in 1702. Under the aegis of the Queen and her advisors, a Bill of Union was drawn up and in 1706 negotiations between England and Scotland began in earnest. The circumstances of Scotland's acceptance of the Bill are to some degree disputed. Opponents believed that failure to accede to the Bill would result in the imposition of Union under less favourable terms. There was fierce debate on both sides of the border, and in some quarters Union was deeply unpopular. However, the near-bankrupt Scottish Parliament did eventually accept the proposals. In 1707, the Act of Union received Royal Assent , abolishing England and Scotland as separate kingdoms and creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain with a single Parliament. Anne became formally the first occupant of a single British throne, and Scotland sent 45 MPs to the unified Parliament At Westminster which had now transformed into the Parliament Of Great Britain . This also meant that Scotland and England could enjoy Free Trade with each other. However, certain Scottish and English institutions were not merged into the British system; Scottish and English law remained separate, as did Scottish and English currency and the Church Of Scotland and Church Of England which were to remain intact and have remained so ever since. One provision of the Act of Union, the renaming of Scotland and England as 'North Britain' and 'South Britain' respectively, failed to take hold and fell into disuse fairly quickly. = The United Kingdom = ACT OF UNION 1800 ''Main article: Act Of Union 1800 '' Ireland 's invasion by the Anglo-Norman s in 1170 led to centuries of strife. Successive English kings sought to conquer and pillage Ireland. In the early 17th century, large-scale settlement of the north from Scotland and England began. After its defeat Ireland was subjected, with varying degrees of success, to control and regulation by Britain. Possibly influenced by the War Of American Independence (1775-1783), a united force of Irish volunteers used their influence to campaign for greater independence for the Irish Parliament. This was granted in 1782, giving free trade and legislative independence to Ireland. However, the French Revolution had encouraged the increasing calls for moderate Constitutional Reform . The Society of United Irishmen , made up of Presbyterians from Belfast and both Anglicans and Catholics in Dublin , campaigned for an end to British domination. Their leader Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-98) worked with the Catholic Convention of 1792 which demanded an end to the Penal Laws . Failing to win the support of the British government, he travelled to Paris , encouraging a number of French naval forces to land in Ireland to help with the planned insurrections. These were slaughtered by government forces, but these rebellions convinced the British under Prime Minister William Pitt ) that the only solution was to end Irish independence once and for all. The legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was completed on January 1 , 1801 , in both the Irish and the British parliaments, under the Act Of Union 1800 , changing the country's name to "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". Ireland now sent around 100 MPs to the House Of Commons 3 at Westminster and 28 Peers to the House Of Lords , elected from among their number by the Irish peers themselves (Catholics were not permitted this great honour). 19TH CENTURY Political history: | ||
| "http://wwwinformationdelightinfo/encyclopedia/entry/Marquess_of_Salisbury" class="copylinks">Marquess Of Salisbury Arthur Balfour Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman Herbert Henry Asquith David Lloyd George Andrew Bonar Law Stanley Baldwin Ramsay MacDonald Stanley Baldwin Ramsay MacDonald Stanley Baldwin Neville Chamberlain Winston Churchill |
|
|