Cultural Insights

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Cultural Insights Into the British Word part 2 EXTREMELY

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Cultural Insights into the English (Universitat de les Illes Balears)
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Tema 1. An introduction to Britain: Geographical facts and figures.
Geographical identities.
British Isles. These are a group of islands off the north-western coast of
continental Europe, facing the Celtic Sea, the Irish Sea, the North Sea
and the Atlantic Ocean. This archipelago consists of the islands of Great
Britain (most important), Ireland and over six thousand smaller islands. Irish Sea
The English Channel separates the island of Great Britain from the rest
of Europe. The closest country is France
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Celtic Sea
Commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a
sovereign country in Western Europe. Includes the island of Great
Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland (Eire in Irish), and
many smaller islands. Northern Ireland (Belfast) is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign
state: the Republic of Ireland (Dublin). Apart from this land border, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the
North Sea to its east, the English Channel to its south, and the Celtic Sea to its south-south-west, giving it the 12th-longest
coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. Great Britain is formed by England (London),
Wales (Cardiff) and Scotland (Edinburgh). London is the capital city of the UK. The small islands near France are the
Channel Islands, and the distance between England and France is the Strait of Dover1.
In Ireland, Irish and English are both official languages. In Wales, the languages spoken are English and Welch. On the other
hand, Scotland is culturally divided in two parts: Highlands and Lowlands. In Scotland are spoken three languages: English,
Scottish (specially in the North, Highlands), and Scots (which is a mix of the result of common influences between English
and Scottish). The British Overseas territories2 include The Falkland Isles, Gibraltar, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin
Islands, Cayman Islands, among others.
British Crown dependencies. The Crown dependencies are the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea and the Bailiwicks 3 of Jersey and
Guernsey in the English Channel. Being independently administered jurisdictions, they do not form part of either the UK or
the British Overseas territories. They are self-governing possessions of the Crown (defined uniquely in each jurisdiction).
Internationally, the dependencies are considered “territories for which the UK is responsible” rather than as sovereign states.
As a result, they are not member states of the Commonwealth of Nations. However, they do have a relationship with the
Commonwealth, the European Union (EU) and other international organisations and are members of the British-Irish
Council. They are not part of the EU, although they are within the EU‟s customs area.
Although the Crown dependencies are not sovereign states, the power to pass legislation affecting the islands ultimately rests
with their own respective legislative assemblies, with the assent4 of the Crown (Privy Council, or in the case of the Isle of
Man in certain circumstances the Lieutenant-Governor5). In each case, the head of government is referred to as a Chief
Minister.
The British nations: English or British?
 UK Vs. Republic of Ireland (Eire).

 Political names: UK = (Great) Britain => British.
 Geographical names: Great Britain Vs. Ireland.
The image represents Britannia, a personification of Great Britain that was created in the 19 th century. It has a symbolism
because it represents the country. France has a representation too, Marianne, who looks like a young woman with long hair
and a flag of the revolution on her helmet6. Britannia is more classic, she looks like Athena, with her helmet and Neptune‟s
trident. Most people say that they come from Britain, although the UK is becoming popular between young people. In
principal, when you say Britain you refer to the UK, and when you say Great Britain, you refer to the island of the UK.
1
Estrecho de Dover, Paso de Calais. Es el estrecho que está en la parte más angosta del Canal de la Mancha (English Channel).
2
Territorios británicos de ultramar.
3
Bailías.
4
Consentimiento.
5
Asistente del gobernador.
6
Casco.

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Identities in contemporary Britain. Many people in Britain may identify themselves at one level with the civic national unit
and respond to a sense of Britishness, although this feeling appears to be weakening among some white Britons and
strengthening among non-white and mixed ethnic groups. To an English man, being English and British means exactly the
same, but that does not always happen in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, where on a smaller level of geographical
identification, people have historically been conscious of their ethnic identities and have had different levels for considering
themselves as more or less British than Scottish, Northern Irish or Welsh.
Such awareness has increased in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland since the transfer of some political power from the
London Parliament (1998 – 99) by the establishment of a Parliament in Edinburgh and Assemblies in Cardiff and Belfast.
England was not included in this Devolution process, save for London, but the reform seems to have provoked a greater
awareness among some English people of their separate identities.
In some other further divisions, there is England‟s Local Economic Partnerships (LEP‟s), which replaced earlier Regional
Development Agencies (regions). It has voluntary associations of councils and businesses that try to foster local identity and
enterprise partnerships.
Devolution. As the consequence of devolution, these three (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) obtained an own
Parliament and government different from the British parliament Northern Ireland was the first that received a separate
government and parliament because there was a lot of terrorism there (IRA, Irish Republican Army). Due to the identity
problems there, London decided to cancel the devolution to Northern Ireland in 1970 approximately. The English parliament
is the British parliament and the same with the government because it is related to identity. In England, English people feel
“more British” than people from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, so they do not need to have a different government and
parliament from the British.
Population Distribution. The UK is divided in smaller administrative units too, the counties, that are important sources of
identity and which name comes from count, a nobleman. The Monarchy can give aristocratic titles, so the origin of counties
comes from the land that a count received from the Monarchy. Some English counties are Oxfordshire or Devonshire. In
Ireland there are also counties.
The territory is not as large as people believe; its population is over 64 million people, since the world is a multicultural
world, with race minorities, most of them blacks. The UK started receiving numbers of people from different countries, like
from Asia since 1950-60; because when the colonies got independent, people started to move to the UK, the Commonwealth
(colonies). In London, a 40% of the population are immigrants. In Ireland the population is smaller, because in the 19th
century most of the population were farmers. In 1840, millions of people in Ireland died for starvation (illness), and the ones
who survived moved to the USA or other places.
The only huge city in England is the capital city, London, which limits are set to be 7 million people, so it is the largest city of
Europe, although it depends on the source that gives the information. For many years, in the 19 th and middle 20th century,
London was not the largest city on Earth; it was Mexico, with 13 million people. Nowadays, in terms of population, Tokyo is
like London. However, London takes up twice as much as space than Tokyo. London has a lot of space because each family
lives in a house, under a roof, and that is the reason why London is very expensive.
The second largest city in the UK is Birmingham. This city used to be very useful and it was one of the cities where the
Industrial Revolution took place. Manchester is also a competitor that deserves to be one of the largest cities in England. In
the 18th century was not really important, but it became an important city in the 19 th century because of the Industrial
Revolution as well. England is very densely populated.
National symbols. British National Anthem: God save the Queen (or King). Flags:
 English Flag: derived from St. George‟s cross. In 1188 Henry II of England and Philip II of France agreed to go on
a crusade, and that Henry would use a white cross and Philip a red cross. 13th-century authorities are unanimous on
the point that the English king adopted the white cross, and the French king the red one (and not vice versa as
suggested by later use). It is not clear at what point the English exchanged the white cross for the red-on-white one.
 Scottish Flag: derived from St. Andrew‟s cross. Legend tells that in 832 A.D. Óengus II led an army of Picts and
Scots into battle against the Angles, led by Æthelstan, near modern day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend
states that whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Óengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint
Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland; Andrew then appeared to Óengus that night in a dream and assured him of
victory. On the morning of battle white clouds forming the shape of an X were said to have
appeared in the sky. Óengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine

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intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in terms of numbers were victorious.
 Northern Ireland Flag: derived from St. Patrick‟s Saltire that represents Northern Ireland
indirectly as Ireland in the Union Jack. It is sometimes flown during Saint Patrick's Day parades
in Northern Ireland, and is used to represent Northern Ireland during some royal events.
 UK Flag: also known as the Union flag or Union Jack, is the combination of the flags of
England, Scotland and Northern Ireland in 1801. Wales is not represented in this flag,
because when the flag was designed, Wales was part of the Kingdom of England.
 Republic of Ireland Flag: The green pale in the flag symbolises Irish republicanism dating back to the Society of
United Irishmen in the 1790s. The orange represents the minority who were supporters of King William III, who was
of the House of Orange and originally the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, had
defeated King James II and his predominantly Irish Catholic army at the Battle of the
Boyne in 1690. His title came from the Principality of Orange in the south of France that
had been a Protestant bastion from the 16th century. It was included in the Irish flag in an
attempt to reconcile the Orange Order in Ireland with the Irish independence movement. The white in the centre
signifies a lasting truce between the two cultures and a living together in peace. The flag, as a whole, is intended to
symbolise the inclusion and hoped-for union of the people of different traditions on the island of Ireland, which is
expressed in the Constitution as the entitlement of every person born in Ireland to be part of the independent Irish
nation, regardless of ethnic origin, religion or political conviction
Other British Symbols.
 England.
- Heraldry.
 Coat of arms: royal arms of England, symbolising England and the English Monarchs.
 St. Edwards Crown: was one of the English crown jewels and remains one of the senior Crown Jewels of
the UK, often being used as the Coronation Crown.
 The Tudor rose, which takes its name from Tudor dynasty, was adopted as a national emblem of England
around the time of Wars of the Roses as a symbol of peace. It is a syncretic symbol in that it merged the
white rose of the Yorkists and the red rose of the Lancastrians, who went to war over control of the royal
house. It is also known as the rose of England.
 Scotland.
- Heraldry.
 Coat of arms: Or, a lion rampant symbolising Scotland and the Scottish monarchs.
 The Honours of Scotland: Scottish crown jewels, displayed in the Crown Room of Edinburgh Castle,
from where they are removed only for State Occasions.
 The thistle7: floral emblem of Scotland.
 Wales.
- The Flag of Wales: incorporates the red dragon, now a popular Welsh symbol, along with the Tudor colours of
green and white. It was used by Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 after which it was carried in state to
St. Paul‟s Cathedral.
- Heraldry.
 The coat of arms of the Principality of Wales, which are the historic arms of the Kingdom of Gwynedd
are used by Charles, Prince of Wales in his personal standard.
 The Princes of Wales‟s feathers: is the heraldic badge8 of the Prince of Wales.
 The red dragon: part of the national flag design.
 Daffodil9: national flower of Wales.
 Leek10: national emblem of Wales.
7
Cardo.
8
Distintivo.
9
Narciso.

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 Ireland.
- The Ulster Flag: also known as the Ulster Banner or the Red Hand, was the flag of the government of Northern
Ireland between 1953 -72. It was adopted in 1953 in honour of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and was
based on the arms that were granted to the government of Northern Ireland in 1924 by the Ulster King of Arms
based in Dublin Castle. The flag lost its official status in 1972 when the Parliament of Northern Ireland was
abolished by the British government and since then there has been no “official flag” for Northern Ireland.
However, internationally the flag is still used officially for sporting fixtures11 and events. It‟s an illegal symbol of
Protestantism in Ireland.
- Heraldry.
 Coat of arms of Ireland: Celtic harp.
 Shamrock: national plant of Ireland.
Physical features and climate.
The countryside. Historically, Britain‟s physical features have influenced human settlement, population movements military
conquest and political unions. They have also conditioned the location and exploitation of industry, transport system,
agriculture, fisheries, forestry and energy supplies. Today they are tied to concerns about pollution, climate change, the
environment and food products. Some have been affected by the UK government EU policies on agriculture, fisheries and
carbon emissions.
Britain is an eminently urban country, and that is why only some 10 million people live in rural areas. Many of them feel a
traditional (if romanticised) nostalgia for it and identify with it. Since many people live in densely populated areas, they are
influenced by these issues and the activities of public and private bodies in relation to the environment.
UK topography. The UK lies between latitudes 49° to 61° N, and longitudes 9° W to 2° E. Northern Ireland shares a 360
KM land boundary with the Republic of Ireland. It is connected to continental Europe by the Channel Tunnel, which at 50
KM (38 KM underwater) is the longest underwater tunnel in the world. The Royal Greenwich Observatory in London is the
defining point of the Prime Meridian12.
England (London) accounts for just over half of the total area of the UK, covering around of 130.000 square kilometres. Most
of the country consists of lowland13 territory, with mountainous terrain north-west of the Tees-Exe line14; including the
Cumbrian Mountains of the Lake District, the Pennines, Exmoor and Dartmoor. The main rivers and estuaries15 are Thames
(most famous, most important because it is so navigable), Severn and the Humber. England‟s highest mountain is Scafell Pike
(978 metres) in the Lake District. Its principal rivers are Severn, Thames, Humber, Tees, Tyne, Tweed, Avon, Exe and
Mersey.
Scotland (Edinburg) accounts for just under a third of the total area of the UK, covering around of 78.000 square kilometres
and including nearly eight hundred islands, predominantly west and north of the mainland; notably the Hebrides Orkney
Islands and the Shetland Islands. Scotland is the most mountainous country in the UK and its topography is distinguished by
the Highland Boundary Fault (a geological rock fracture), which traverses Scotland from Arran in the west, to Stonehaven in
the east. The fault separates two distinctively different regions, namely the Highlands to the north and west and the Lowlands
to the south and east. The more rugged16 highland region contains the majority of Scotland‟s mountainous land, including
Ben Nevis, which at 1.343 metres is the highest point in British Isles. Lowland areas, especially the narrow waist 17 of land
between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth known as the Central Belt, are flatter and home to most of the population
including Glasgow, Scotland‟s largest city, and Edinburg, its capital and political centre, although upland and mountainous
terrain lies within the Southern Uplands.
10
Puerro.
11
Accesorios.
12
Meridiano de Greenwich.
13
Flat territory: tierras bajas, terreno plano.
14
An imaginary northwest-southwest line that can be drawn on the map of Great Britain which roughly divides the country into lowland
and upland regions.
15
Where river metes sea. Estuario, desembocadura de un río en el mar.
16
Escabroso.
17
Franja estrecha.

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Wales (Cardiff) accounts for less than a tenth of the total area of the UK, covering around of 20.000 square kilometres. Wales
is mostly mountainous, though South Wales is less mountainous than North and mid Wales. The main population and
industrial areas are in South Wales, consisting of the coastal cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and the South Wales
Valleys to their North. The highest mountains in Wales are in Snowdonia and include Snowdon, which, at 1.085 metres is the
highest peak in Wales. The fourteen, or possibly fifteen, Welsh mountains over 1 kilometre high are known collectively as
the Welsh 3000s. Wales has over 2.700 kilometres of coastline. Several islands lie off the Welsh mainland, the largest of
which is Anglesey in the north-west.
Northern Ireland (Belfast), separated from Great Britain by the Irish Sea and North Channel, has an area of over 14.000
square kilometres and is mostly hilly. It includes Lough Neagh which, at 388 square kilometres is the largest lake in the
British Isles by area. The highest peak in Northern Ireland is Slieve Donard in the Mourne Mountains at 852 metres.
Climate. The UK has a temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall18 all year round. The temperature varies with the seasons
seldom19 dropping below -11 °C or rising above 35 °C. The prevailing wind is from the south-west and bears frequent spells20
of mild21 and wet weather from the Atlantic Ocean, although the eastern parts are mostly sheltered from this wind since the
majority of the rain falls over the western regions the eastern parts are therefore the driest. Atlantic currents, warmed by the
Gulf Stream, bring mild winters; especially in the west where winters are wet and even more so over high ground. Summers
are warmest in the south-east of England, being closes to the European mainland, and coolest in the north. Heavy snowfalls
can occur in winter and early spring on high ground, and occasionally settles to great depth away from the hills.
Britain is not a particularly sunny country, although there are periods of relief from the general greyness. The frequent cloud
cover over the islands means that even on a hot summer‟s day there may be little sunshine breaking through, giving rise to
humid, sticky22 conditions. Sunshine can frequently mix with pollutants to give poor air quality in both the cities and the rural
areas, which may adversely affect those with respiratory and other kinds of illness.
Main cities in the UK. London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds-Bradford, Glasgow, Portsmouth, Liverpool, Nottingham,
Sheffield, Bristol, Belfast, Leicester.
The population in England is over 53 million people, in Scotland over 5 million, in Wales over 3 million and in Northern
Ireland over 1.800.000, of which over 817.000 are Catholics and over 875.000 are Protestants. In Ireland are over 4.5 million
people. Above 7 million people live in London, around 1 million in Birmingham, above 500.000 in Glasgow and in Dublin.
Agriculture. Soils vary in quality from the thin, poor ones of highland Britain to the rich, fertile land of low-lying areas in
eastern and southern England. The importance of agriculture industry is very low, there is concern that farmland is being
increasingly used for building and recreational purposes. The agricultural sector largely depends on the EU‟s Common
Agricultural Policy. Employs 1.4% of the total workforce23, produces 60% of the Country‟s food requirements:
 Dairy24, beef and sheep: Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Northern and South-Western England.
 Pig: Northern Ireland and Eastern and Northern England.
 Poultry25 and egg widespread.
 Main crops26: Wheat27 and barley28, oats29, potatoes, oilseed rape30 and sugar beet31: Southern and Eastern England
and Southern Scotland.
 Apples, berries, flowers: widely available.
18
Precipitaciones abundantes.
19
Raramente.
20
Temporadas.
21
Templado.
22
Pegajoso/a.
23
Personal.
Lechería, productos provenientes de la leche (cheese, butter…).
24
25
Aves.
26
Cultivos principales.
27
Trigo.
28
Cebada.
29
Avena.
30
Colza oleaginosa
31
Remolacha azucarera.

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Fisheries. The UK is one of Europe‟s leading fishing nations, accounts for 66% of Britain‟s fish consumption. The main
catches are Cod32 (endangered), Haddock33 (endangered), Whiting34, Herring35, Mackerel36, Plaice and Solo37. Fish Farms
(Scotland), trout38 and shellfish39. The main problem is that overfishing leads to depletion40 of resources, and in the UK are
affected by EU‟s Common Fisheries Policy.
Forestry. UK is one of the least forested countries in Europe, with a policy of doubling of trees since 1947, because it heavily
depends on wood imports.
Energy resources. Industrial Revolution started in England in the second half of the 18 th century, so energy is an important
sector in British Economy, encompassing some of the country‟s largest companies (Shell, BP, and British Gas). The
electricity come from fossil fuels41 (64%), Nuclear power (20%: 8 nuclear power stations) (expansion halted42), hydro-
electricity and renewable sources (e.g. wind farms). The UK is almost self-dependent in terms of energy needs, largely due to
off-shore (North Sea and Atlantic fields) oil and gas supplies. Likely43 to decrease due to dependence on imported gas and oil.
Transport. The road network in Britain is good, but not the best in the world. Motorways44 and trunk roads45 are controlled
by the Highways Agency; the smallest roads are controlled by local councils. There is severe road traffic congestion
problems, but with a good safety record. In terms of public bus and coach services46, bus services have declined, largely due
to privatisation that led to increased private car usage. However, there has been a considerable expansion in long-distance
coach services (National Express).
 Waterways. Some of the rivers in England are navigable. Originally, there were channels built for freight47 transport,
but now are popular for recreational purposes.
 Railway. The world‟s first railway network was built in England, nationalised in 1947 and privatised again in 1997.
Network Rail own the tracks48 and most stations and trains are owned by 27 private regional companies. Although it
was modernised late, speed and facilities are still inferior to those in other countries. High Speed 2 (HS2) is a planned
high-speed railway linking London-Birmingham-The North (East Midlands, Leeds and Manchester).
 The London Underground (The Tube). The world‟s first. Is one of the world‟s busiest and largest, partly privatised.
The Crossrail project consists in 21 KM of new tunnels linking East and West London.
 The Channel Tunnel. Opened in 1994 links London‟s St. Pancras with Paris, Brussels and others destinations in
France. Is a high-speed passenger trains company (Eurostar).
On international transport, there are over 300 seaports in Britain; most of them are small. The shipping fleet49 has declined,
but most of Britain‟s overseas trade50 is carried by sea. Dover is the Europe‟s busiest ferry port. The aviation system is wholly
privatised, but there has been a growth of low-cost airlines: Ryanair (Irish), EasyJet (British), with over 140 civil aerodromes.
The London Airport System serves London‟s metropolitan area, is the world‟s busiest airport system by passenger number
and handles over 60% of all UK air traffic. Heathrow Airport is the Europe‟s busiest international airport, hub 51 for British
Airways and Virgin Atlantic; with direct flights to 5of the world‟s 6 inhabited continents, 80 airlines and services for 185
cities in 84 countries. Passengers in 2014: 73.4 million.
32
Bacalao.
33
Eglefino.
34
Merlán.
35
Arenque.
36
Caballa.
37
Suela (ambos).
38
Trucha.
39
Crustáceos.
40
Agotamiento.
41
Combustibles fósiles.
42
Detenido.
43
Probablemente.
44
English word for highways.
45
Carreteras principales.
46
Autocares.
47
Mercancías.
48
Pistas.
49
Flota de envío.
50
Comercio exterior.
51
Aeropuerto central.

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Communications. In terms of telecommunications there is British Telecom, privatised in 1984 and market leader. Mobile
networks operators are EE (BT), O2 (Telefónica), Vodafone and 3 (CK Hutchison Holdings; Hong Kong). Britain is
becoming one of the world‟s most web and gadget obsessed country. The postal services are The Post Office (public), which
provides counter services; and the Royal Mail (privatised), which provide delivery services, including Parcelforce.
Attitudes to the environment.
 Rise of Green Movement in the 1980‟s: wider awareness of environmental issues.

 Like most industrial countries, UK suffers serious air pollution from the discharge of carbon emissions into the air.
 Pressure from „green‟ lobbying52.
 GVT: emissions should be reduced without harming the economy.
 Individual attitudes: many Britons take specific measures themselves (unleaded petrol53, limited use of plastic bags,
environmentally-friendly light bulbs and recycling and composting).
 But Britons are overly dependent on the car, that is why congestion charge was introduced in London.
Tema 2. British history in a nutshell: from pre-history to the Middle Ages.
The Stone Age. Britain is an island, and Britain‟s history has been closely connected with the sea. Until modern times, it was
as easy to travel across water as it was across land, where roads were frequently unusable. At moments of great danger
Britain has been saved from danger by its surrounding seas. Britain‟s history and its strong national sense have been shaped
by the sea.
 Old Stone Age (Palaeolithic Era). Britain has not always been an island. It became one only after the end of the last
ice age. The temperature rose54 and the ice cap melted55, flooding56 the lower-lying land that is now under the North
Sea and the English Channel. The ice age was not one long equally long period. There were warmer times when the
ice cap retreated and colder periods when the ice cap reached as far south as the River Thames. The first evidence of
human life is a few stone tools, dating from one of the warmer periods, about 250.000 BC. These simple objects
show that there were two different kinds of inhabitant. The earlier group made their tools from flakes57 of flint58,
similar in kind to stone tools found across the North European plain as far as Russia. The other group made tools
from a central core of flint, probably the earliest method of human tool making, which spread from Africa to Europe.
Hand axes made in this way have been found widely, as far north as Yorkshire and as far west as Wales. However,
the ice age advanced again and Britain became hardly habitable until another milder period, probably around 50.000
BC. During this time a new type of human being seems to have arrived, who was the ancestor of the modern British.
These people looked similar to the modern British, but were probably smaller and had a life span59 of about 30 years.
 Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic Era). Around 10.000 BC, as the ice age drew to a close, Britain was peopled by small
groups of hunters, gatherers and fishers. By 6.000 BC the English Channel was formed by melting and few people
had settled homes, and they seemed to have followed herds60 of deer which provided them with food and clothing. By
about 5.000 BC Britain had finally become an island, and had also become heavily forested. For the wanderer-
hunter61 culture this was a disaster, for the cold-loving deer and other animals on which they lived largely died out.
 New Stone Age (Neolithic Era). About 3.000 BC people crossed the narrow sea from Europe in small round boats of
bent62 wood covered with animal skins. Each carrying one or two persons. These people kept animals and grew corn
crops, and knew how to make pottery63. They probably came from the Iberian (Spanish) peninsula or even the North
African coast. They were small, dark and long-headed people, and may be the forefathers64 of dark-hired inhabitants
of Wales and Cornwall today. The settled in the western parts of Britain and Ireland, from Cornwall at the southwest
end of Britain all the way to the far north. They built large wood, soil and stone monuments, like Stonehenge.
52
Cabildeo.
53
Gasolina sin polomo.
54
Pasado del verbo to rise. Subió.
55
Pasado del verbo to melt. Derritió.
56
To flood = inundar.
57
Escamas.
58
Pedernal, piedra.
59
Esperanza de vida.
60
Rebaños.
61
Vagabundo cazador.
62
Doblado/a.
63
Cerámica, alfarería.
64
Antepasados.

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Celtic Expansion (700 BC – 43 AD). From about 700BC there was a movement into the islands of so-called Celtic tribes,
who have been credited with bringing an Iron Age civilization with them. Many of them were tall, and had fair of red hair and
blue eyes. Some possibly came by the sea from central and Western Europe and settled in eastern Britain, while other arrived
from the Iberian (Spanish-Portuguese) areas and populated Cornwall, Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man and western Scotland.
Their descendants live today in the same western parts. Debates continue about who the Celts actually were; it is though that
they were not a unified group with a single Celtic gene, had at least two main languages and were divided into different
scattered tribes, who often fought with each other. They were later overcome by so-called „Belgic tribes‟ (arguably of Celtic
western European origin), around 200 BC.
The Celts began to control all the lowland areas of Britain, and were joined by new arrivals from the European mainland. The
Celts were organised into different tribes, and tribal chiefs were chosen from each family or tribe, sometimes as the result of
fighting matches between individuals, and sometimes by election. In the 387 BC, Rome it is sacked by the Celts.
These varied groups were subjected to a series of Roman expeditions from 55 BC, when Julius Caesar briefly visited Britain,
and saw that the Belgic tribes were different from the older inhabitants. The eventual Roman military occupation of the
islands (except for Ireland and most of Scotland) lasted from 43 AD until 410 AD.
Roman Britain (43 -410 AD). Almost a century later of the visit of Julius Caesar, a roman army actually occupied Britain.
The term „Britain‟ probably derives from the Greek and Latin names given to England and Wales by the Romans, although it
may stem from Celtic origins. It is argued that the Romans did not mix well with the existing population, whom they called
„Britons‟, and that their lasting influence was slight. Romans were determinate to conquer the whole island; they invaded
Britain in order to make use of British food for their own army.
The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing to Britain. The written word was important for spreading ideas and also
for establishing power. As early as 80 AD, as one Roman at the time noted “people to use to reject Latin began to use it in
speech and writing”. But Latin completely disappeared both in its spoken and writing forms when the Anglo-Saxons invaded
Britain in the 5th century AD.
The Romans established a Romano-British culture across the southern half of Britain, from the river Humber to the river
Severn, introducing Latin and Christianity. This part of Britain was inside the Roman Empire; beyond were the upland areas,
under Roman control but not developed. The Romans could not conquer „Caledonia‟, as they called Scotland, although they
spent over a century trying to do so. At last they built a strong wall along the northern border, named after the Emperor
Hadrian who planned it, marking the border between two later countries, England and Scotland. Eventually, the border was
established a few miles further north. The Romans conquered England, not the rest.
Roman control of Britain came to an end as the empire began to collapse. The first signs were the attacks by the Celts of
Caledonia in 367 AD. The Romans legions found it more and more difficult to stop the raiders65 from crossing Hadrian‟s
Wall. The same was happening on the European mainland as Germanic groups, Saxons and Franks began to raid the Coast of
Gaul66. In 409 AD Rome pulled its last soldiers out of Britain and the Romano-British, the Romanised Celts, were left to fight
alone against the Scots, the Irish and Saxon riders from Germany. The following year Rome itself fell to raiders. When
Britain called to Rome for help against the raiders from Saxon Germany in the mid-fifth century, no answer came.
Roman life. The most obvious characteristic of Roman Britain was its towns, which were the basis of Roman administration
and civilisation. Many grew out of Celtic settlements, military camps or market centres. Broadly, there were three different
kinds of town in Roman Britain, two of which were towns established by Roman charter. There were the coloniae, towns
peopled by Roman settlers, and the municipia, large cities in which the whole population was given the Roman citizenship.
The third kind, the civitas, included the old Celtic tribal capitals, through which the Romans administered the Celtic
population in the countryside. Then, probably from the end of the second century to the end of the third century AD, almost
every town was given walls. At first many of these were no more than earthworks; by 300AD all towns had thick stone walls.
The Romans left about twenty large towns of about 5.000 inhabitants, and almost one hundred smaller ones. Many of these
were at first army camps, and the latin word for camp, castra, has remained part of many town names to these days
(Gloucester, Leicester, Doncaster, Chester, Lancaster, etc). They were built with stone as well as wood, connected by roads
which were so well built that they survived when later roads broke up. In some ways life in Roman Britain seems very
civilised, but it was also hard for all except the richest. It is very difficult to be sure how many people were living in Britain
when the Romans left. Probably it was as many as five million. The new waves of invaders changed everything.
65
Asaltantes.
66
Costa de la Galia.

lOMoARcPSD|15275033
The Germanic Invasions. The wealth of Britain by the fourth century, the result of it mild climate and centuries of peace,
was a temptation for the greedy67. Germanic tribes such as Angles, Saxons and Jutes from north-western Europe invaded the
country. They either mixed with the existing population or pushed it westwards, although the degree of displacement has
been disputed. At first, the Germanic tribes only raided Britain, but after 430 AD they began to settle. The country was then
gradually divided into seven separate and often warring68 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England (East Anglia, Mercia,
Northumbria, Wessex, Essex, Kent, Sussex) with isolated „Celtic‟ areas in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Anglo-Saxon
migrations gave the larger part of Britain its new name, „the land of the Angles‟.
At first, there was an effective cultural colonisation and the „Englisc‟ replaced both Latin and Celtic language. The Roman
brand of Christianity is brought again to England by St. Augustine in 597 AD, the missionary sent from Pope Gregory to
convert the Saxons. Augustine lands in Kent and is welcomed by King Ethelbert. Augustine converts Ethelbert and his court
to Christianity and found a monastery at Canterbury built from the Romans ruins of the old city.
Between the 8th and the 11th centuries, raiders and colonists from Scandinavia, mainly Danish and Norwegian (all Vikings),
plundered69 Western Europe, including the British Isles. The first raids in the British Isles were n the late 8 th century, mainly
on churches and monasteries. In the 860s, instead of raids, the Danes mounted a full-scale invasion. In 865 an enlarged army
arrived that the Anglo-Saxons described as the Great heathen Army70. Within ten years nearly, all of the Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms fell to the invaders. Only the Kingdom of Wessex was able to survive.
In March 878 the Anglo-Saxon King of Wessex, Alfred the Great, with a few men built a fortress71 in Athelney, hidden deep
in the marshes72 of Somerset. He used this as a base from which to harry73 the Vikings. In May 878 he put together an army
formed from the populations of Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire, which defeated the Viking Army in the battle of
Edington. The Vikings retreated74 to their stronghold75; ultimate the Danes capitulated and their leader Guthrum agreed to
withdraw76 Wessex and to be baptised. There followed a peace treaty between Alfred and Guthrum, which had a variety of
provisions including defining the boundaries77 of the area to be ruled by the Danes (Danelaw) and those of Wessex. The
Kingdom of Wessex controlled part of the midlands and the whole of the south (apart from Cornwall, which was still held by
the Britons), while the Danes held East Anglia and the North.
These invasions lasted until the Scandinavian were defeated in England, Scotland and Ireland in the tenth to eleventh
centuries. The Unification of England began from Wessex. After the victory at Edington and resultant peace treaty, Alfred set
about transforming his kingdom of Wessex into a society on a full-time war footing. He built a navy78, reorganised the
army79, and set up a system of fortified towns known as buhrs. He mainly used old roman cities for his buhrs as he was able
to rebuild and reinforce their existing fortifications. To maintain the buhrs, and the standing army, he set up a taxation system
known as the Burghal Hidage.
English unification (10th century). On Alfred‟s death in 899, his son Edward the elder succeeded him. Alfred‟s son Edward,
and his grandsons Athelstan, Edmund I and Eadred, continued the policy of resistance against the Vikings. Edward and his
successors expanded Alfred‟s network of fortified buhrs, a key element of their strategy, enabling 80 them to go on the
offensive. Edward recaptured Essex in 913 and his son Athelstan, annexed Northumbria and forced the kings of Wales to
submit81. At the battle of Brunanbuhr in 937, he defeated and alliance of the Scots, Danes and Vikings to become King of all
England. However, in 973, Athelstan‟s brother Edgar was crowned King of England and Emperor of Britain. He died in 975
and was succeeded by Edward the Martyr, who died in 978 and was succeeded by Ethereld the unready.
67
Codicioso.
68
En guerra.
69
To plunder = saquear.
70
Gran ejército pagano.
71
Fortaleza.
72
Pantanos.
73
Acosar.
74
Pasado del verbo to retreat. Retiraron.
75
Fortaleza.
76
Retirarse, abandonar.
77
Fronteras.
78
Armada.
79
Ejército.
80
Permitiendo.
81
Someterse.

lOMoARcPSD|15275033
When Ethereld died, Canute, the leader of the Danish Vikings, controlled much of England. He became king for the simple
reason that the royal council, the Witan, and everyone else, feared disorder. Ruled by a Danish king was far better than rule
by no one at all. Canute died in 1035, and his son died shortly after, in 1040. The Witan chose Edward, one of Saxon
Ethereld‟s sons, to be king.
Edward, known as The Confessor, was a deeply religious person, more interested in the Church than in kingship. Church
building had been going on for over a century, and he encouraged it. By the time Edward died there was a Church in almost
every village. The pattern of the English village, with its manor house and Church, dates from this time. He built Westminster
Abbey, and in fact, it was a Norman, not a Saxon building, because he had spent most of his life in Normandy and his mother
was a daughter of the Duke of Normandy.
Edward only lived until 1066, when he died childless. The question of who should follow him as king was one of the most
important in English history. The Witan chose Harold, a Godwinson, to be King; he had no royal blood, but he seemed a
good choice for the throne. Harold‟s right to the English throne was challenged by a Scandinavian Prince and William Duke
of Normandy. William had two claims to the English throne. First, that King Edward had promised to him; second, that
Harold, who visited William a few years before, had promised William that he, Harold, would not try to take the throne.
In 1066 the Normans invaded England. Harold was defeated in battle by an arrow o the eye, near Hastings and William
marched to London, which quickly gave in when he began to burn villages outside the city. He was crowned King of England
in Edward‟s new Church of Westminster Abbey as William I the Conqueror on Christmas Day (25/12), 1066.The day is
remembered as the last time that England was successfully invaded. It was the end of the Anglo-Saxon age in England. The
Norman period had begun.
As soon as William the Conqueror arrived in England in 1066, he started building castles as the first Normand King. At first,
they would have been temporary constructions designed to offer some protection for the army that he had brought with him
from Normandy. At Pevensey, where he first landed, and existing but run-down82 fortification built by the Romans was
quickly strengthened to provide a secure first base. After becoming King, William marched around the south coast of
England building castles and taking control. As the Normans spread out to conquer their new lands, they chose to build their
Motte83 and Baily84 castles in locations where they could be on hand to put down revolts. They built inside or near existing
towns, usually on high ground or where there was a good water supply.
The Norman invasion in Wales really started soon after they had conquered England. When they went to Cardiff in 1081,
they found the remains of the last Roman fort and built a wooden motte and baily castle there. By around 1135, the wooden
castle was replaced with a stronger stone keep.
Consequences of the Norman Invasion. When the people shouted “God save the King” at the coronation, the nervous
Norman guards at Westminster Abbey thought they were going to attack William. In they fear, they set fire to the nearby
houses and the ceremony ended in disorder.
 The Norman elite will be Norman. Although William was now crowned King, his conquest had only begun, and the
fighting lasted for another five years. There was an Anglo-Saxon rebellion against the Normans every year until
1070. The small Norman army marched from village to village, destroying places it could not control, and building
forts to guard others. It was a true army of occupation for at least twenty years. The North was particularly hard to
control, and the Norman army had no mercy. When the Saxons fought back, the Normans burnt, destroyed and killed.
Few Saxons lords kept their lands and those who did were the very small number who had accepted William
immediately. All the others lost everything. By 1086, twenty years after the arrival of the Normans, only two of the
greater landlords and only two bishops85 were Saxon. William gave the Saxon lands to his Norman nobles. After each
English rebellion, there was land to give away. Over 4.000 Saxon landlords were replaced by 200 Norman ones.
 The country‟s official language will now be French. The Norman Conquest was a watershed86 in English history and
marked the last England‟s successful external military invasion, influencing English people and their language
(French was the language of the nobility for 300 years) and initiated many social, legal and institutional structures,
such as a feudal system, which were to characterize future British society.
82
Deteriorado/a.
83
A large earth mound either natural or artificial on which a keep (Fortaleza, torre) is built.
84
The open area in a castle between the keep and the curtain wall. This area can have working and domestic buildings in it.
85
Obispos.
86
Línea divisora.

lOMoARcPSD|15275033
 Feudal economy introduced. William was careful in the way he gave land to his nobles. In England, as each new area
of land was captured, William gave parts of it as a reward to his captains. This meant that they held separate small
pieces of land in different parts of the country so that no noble could easily or quickly gather 87 his fighting men to
rebel. At the same time, he kept enough land for himself to make sure he was much stronger than his nobles. Of all
the farmland in England he gave half to the Norman nobles, a quarter to the Church and kept a fifth himself. He kept
the Saxon system of sheriffs and used these as a balance to local nobles. As a result, England was different from the
rest of Europe because it had one powerful family, instead of a large number of powerful nobles. William, and the
kings after him, thought of England as their personal property. William organised his English kingdom according to
the feudal system which had already begun to develop in England before his arrival. The word „feudalism‟ comes
from the French word „feu‟, which the Normans used to refer to land held in return for duty or service to a lord. The
basis of feudal society was the holding of land, and its main purpose was economic. The central idea was that all land
was owned by the King, but it was held by others, called „vassals‟, in return for services and goods. The king gave
large estates to his main nobles in return for a promise to serve him in war for up to forty days. The nobles also had to
give him part of the produce of the land.
 (Norman) lords protect (Anglo-Saxon) vassals in exchange for work. There were to basic principles to feudalism:
every man had a lord, and every lord had land. The King was connected through this „chain‟ of people to the lowest
man in the country. At each level a man had to promise loyalty and service to his lord. On the other hand, each lord
has responsibilities to his vassals. He had to give them land and protection.
 From now on England also has possession in France. Normandy was a province in the North-West of France.
William controlled two large areas: Normandy, which he had been given by his father and England, which he had
won in war. To William the important the important difference between Normandy and England was that as Duke of
Normandy he had to recognise the King of France as his lord, whereas88 in England he was King with no lord above
him. When William died in 1087, he left the Duchy of Normandy to his elder son, Robert. He gave England to his
second son, William, known as Rufus (Latin for red) because of his red hair and his red face. When Robert when to
fight the Muslims in the Holy Land, he left William II in charge of Normandy. After all, the management of
Normandy and England was a family business.
 Peak of splendour: Henry II (1154 – 1189). William II died in a hunting accident in 1100, shot dead by an arrow. He
had not married, and therefore had no son to take the crown. At the time of William‟s death, his elder brother Robert
was on his way home to Normandy from the Holy Land. Their younger brother, Henry, knew that if he wanted the
English crown he would have to act very quickly. He rode to Winchester and took charge of the King‟s treasure. He
then rode to Westminster, where he was crowned king three days later as Henry II. Robert was very angry and
prepared to invade, but it took him a year to organise an army. The Norman nobles in England had to choose between
Henry and Robert. In the end they chose Henry because he was in London, with the crown already on his head. In
1106 Henry invaded Normandy and captured Robert. Normandy and England were reunited under one ruler.
Henry II’s (Angevin) Empire. He conquered Ireland in 1171, and married one of the most important ladies in France,
Eleanor of Aquitaine. Frome the house of Plantagenet, he was a ruler of far more land than any previous king. As lord of
Anjou, he added his father‟s lands to the family empire. Henry II‟s empire stretched from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees.
England provided most of Henry‟s wealth but the heart of his empire lay in Anjou. Many of Henry‟s nobles held land on both
sides of the English Channel. However, Henry quarrelled89 with his beautiful and powerful wife, and his sons, Richard and
John, took Eleanor‟s side; they were doing their duty90 to the King of France, their feudal overlord, in payment for the lands
they held from him. In 1189 Henry died a broken man, disappointed and defeated by his sons and the French King.
England in the high medieval period. Henry II strengthened England‟s borders with Wales and Scotland, and used the
country‟s wealth to fund a long-running war with his rivals in France, but arrangements for his succession once again proved
problematic. After a final confrontation with Henry, his son Richard I succeeded to the throne in 1189.
Richard I has always been one of England‟s most popular kings, although he spent hardly any time in England. He was a
good soldier, but his nickname Coeur de Lion, „Lionheart‟, shows that his culture, like that of the kings before him, was
French. The Pope encouraged English kings to participate in the crusades because they were Christians, and after fighting the
Muslims on the third crusade, on his way back from the Holy Land, Richard was captured by the duke of Austria. Shortly
after, in 1199, Richard was killed in France. Richard had no son, and he was followed by his brother, John, who had already
made himself unpopular with the three most important groups of people, the nobles, the merchants and the Church.
87
Reunir.
88
Mientras.
89
Peleó. To quarrel = pelear.
90
Deber.

lOMoARcPSD|15275033
John was unpopular mainly because he was greedy. He taxed everyone at a higher level than ever before. In 1204 King John
became even more unpopular with his nobles. The French King invaded Normandy and the English nobles lost their lands
there. In 1209, John quarrelled with the Pope over who should be the Archbishop of Canterbury. John was in a weak position
in England and the Pope knew it, so called the King of France to invade England, and closed every church in the country. In
1214, John gave in, and accepted the Pope‟s choice of archbishop.
In 1215 John hoped to recapture Normandy. He called on his lords to fight for him, but they no longer trusted him. They
marched to London, where they were joined by angry merchants. Outside London, John was forced to sign a new agreement:
Magna Carta and the decline of feudalism. This new agreement was an important symbol of political freedom, created in
order to make sure John did not go beyond his rights as feudal lord.
John‟s reign also marked the end of the long struggle between Church and state in England. The struggle was for both power
and money. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Church wanted the kings of Europe to accept its authority over both
spiritual and earthly affairs. The crisis came when Henry II‟s friend Thomas Becket was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
in 1162. Henry hoped that Thomas would help him bring the Church more under his control. At first, Becket refused, and
then he gave in. Later he changed his mind and ran away to France, and it seemed as if Henry had won. But in 1170 Becket
returned to England determined to resist the king. Henry was very angry, and four knights who heard him speak out went to
Canterbury to murder Becket. They killed him in the holiest place of the cathedral, on the altar steps.
Henry II becomes lord of Ireland. By the end of the thirteenth century, a large part of eastern Ireland was controlled by
Anglo-Norman lords in the name of their king. Ireland would be united to England for a lot of years, becoming England‟s
first colony. In Wales, lands were under the king direct rule.
King John had signed Magna Carta unwillingly91, and it quickly became clear that he was not going to keep the agreement.
The nobles rebelled and soon pushed John out of the southeast, but civil war was avoided because John died suddenly in
1216. John‟s son, Henry III, was only nine years old. During the first sixteen years, he was under control of powerful nobles,
and tied by Magna Carta.
Henry III was finally able to rule for himself at the age of twenty-five. He spent his time with foreign friends, and became
involved in expensive wars supporting the Pope in Sicily and France. When Henry III died in 1272, his son Edward I took the
throne without question.
Edward I brought together the first real Parliament. Since the rules of feudalism did not include taxation, taxes could only be
raised with agreement of those wealthy enough to be taxed. Several kings had made arrangements for taxation before, but
Edward I was the first to create a “representative institution” which could provide the money he needed. This institution
became the House of Commons, containing a mixture of knights, wealthy freemen and merchants from the towns.
In 1290 a crisis took place over the succession of the Scottish throne. There were thirteen possible heirs and in order to avoid
civil war, Scottish nobles invited Edward I to settle the matter. Edward had already shown interest in joining Scotland to his
kingdom. In 1286, he had arranged for his own son to marry Margaret, the heir to the Scottish throne, but she had died in a
shipwreck92. The most likely to succeed were John de Balliol and Robert Bruce, both Norman-Scottish knights. He told both
men that they must do homage to him, and so accept his overlordship, before he would help settle the question. He then
invaded Scotland and put John the Balliol on the Scottish throne.
First, Edward made him provide money and troops for the English army and the Scottish nobles rebelled. The Edward
invaded Scotland again, and captured all the main Scottish castles. During the invasion, Edward stole the sacred Stone of
Destiny from Scone Abbey on which, so the legend said, all Scottish kings must sit. Edward believed that without the Stone,
any Scottish coronation would be meaningless, and that his own possession of the Stone would persuade the Scots to accept
him as king.
Edward tried to make Scotland a part of England, as he had done with Wales. Some Scottish nobles accepted him, but the
people refused to be ruled by the English king, starting Scottish nationalism. A new leader took up the struggle: Robert
Bruce, who had competed with John de Balliol for the throne. He was able to raise an army and defeat the English army in
Scotland. Edward I gathered another great army and marched against Robert Bruce, but he died on the way north in 1307 and
was succeeded by his son Edward II. On Edward I‟s grave were written the words “Edward, the Hammer of the Scots”. He
had intended to hammer them and destroy them, but in fact he had hammered them into a nation.
91
A regañadientes.
92
Naufragio.

lOMoARcPSD|15275033
Decay of England in the low medieval period. The fourteenth century was disastrous for Britain as well as most of Europe,
because of the effects of wars and plagues. Probably one-third of Europe‟s population died of plague. Hardly anywhere
escaped its effects. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw a huge development of the English economy, primarily by
agriculture; but economic growth began to falter93 by the end of the thirteen century, owing to a combination of over-
population, land shortages94 and depleted95 soils.
In 1308 Edward II married Isabella of France, the daughter of the powerful king Philip IV, as part of a long-running effort to
resolve the tensions between the English and French crowns. His government was marked by his weakness of character, the
rebellions of the nobility and the revolts originated by his wife. In 1326 the nobility, ruled by Isabella and her lover Roger
Mortimer, organised from France the rebellion and invasion of England.
During the fourteenth century, towards the end of the middle Ages, there was a continuous struggle between the King and his
nobles. The first crisis came in 1327, when Edward II was deposed, forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Edward III, and
cruelly murdered, broking the principle that kings were neither to be killed nor deposed.
England‟s wish to control Scotland had suffered a major setback at Bannockburn in 1314. Many of the English had been
killed, and Edward II himself had been lucky to escape. After other unsuccessful attempts England gave up its claim to
overlordship of Scotland in 1328. However, it was not long before the two countries were at war again, but this time because
of England‟s war with France. The troubles resulted from the French king‟s growing authority in France, and his
determination to control all his nobles, even the greatest of them. To make his position stronger, the King of France began to
interfere with England‟s trade in Gascony, a part of Aquitania, and Burgundy, a province of Flanders (now Belgium); the two
major trading partners of England.
England went to war because it could not afford the destruction of its trade with Flanders. Edward III declared war on France
in 1337, claiming the right to the French Crown. The war Edward began, called the Hundred Years‟ War (1337 – 1453), did
not finally end until 1453, with the English Crown losing all its possessions in France except for Calais, a northern French
port. On the other hand, Ireland (The Pale) was, in theory, English territory, but actually it was nobody‟s land.
The year 1348 brought of great importance, a terrible plague, known as the Black Death, which reached almost every part of
Britain during 1348-9. Probably more than one-third of the entire population of Britain died, and less than one person in ten
who caught the plague managed to survive. This disease came from Asia, known as well as the bubonic pest or bubonic
plague. The lower classes were the most infected because they lived in towns, while the upper classes, in the country, were
more far of the disease. Whole villages disappeared, and some towns were almost completely deserted until the plague itself
died out. As a consequence, devotional trends started to rise up, because people were trying to save their lives.
It is surprising that the English never rebelled against Edward III. He was an expensive king at a time when many people
were miserably poor and sick with the plagues. At the time of the Black Death, he was busy with expensive wars against
France and Scotland. The demands he made on merchants and peasants were enormous, but Edward III handled these people
with skill. His grandson, Richard, was less fortunate. He became king as Richard II on his grandfather‟s death in 1377,
because his father, the Black Prince, had died a few months earlier. Richard II inherited96 the problems of discontent but had
neither the diplomatic skill of his grandfather, nor the popularity of his father. Added to this, he became king when he was
only eleven, and so others governed for him. In the year he became king, these advisers introduced a tax payment for every
person over the age of fifteen. Two years later, this tax was enforced again. The people paid. But in 1381, this tax was
enforced for a third time, increasing to three times the previous amount. There was an immediate revolt in East Anglia and
Kent, two of the richest parts of the countries. The poorer parts of the country, the north and the northwest, did not rebel. This
suggests than in the richer areas, ordinary people had become more aware and confident of their rights and their power. The
new tax had led to revolt, but there were also others reasons for discontent. The landlords had been trying for some time to
force the peasants97 back into serfdom98, because was cheaper than paid labour. The leader of the revolt, Wat Tyler, was the
first to call for fair treatment of England‟s poor people: “we are men formed in Christ‟s likeness 99, and we are kept like
animals”, he claimed.
93
Vacilar.
94
Escasez.
95
Empobrecido/a.
96
Heredó.
97
Campesinos.
98
Servidumbre.
99
Semejanza.

lOMoARcPSD|15275033
The idea that God had created all people equal called for an end to feudalism and respect for honest labour. But the Peasants‟
Revolt, as it was called, only lasted four weeks. During that period, the peasants took control of much of London. When Wat
Tyler was killed, Richard II skilfully quietened the angry crowd. He promised to meet all the people‟s demands, including an
end to serfdom, and the people peacefully went home. But as soon as they had gone, Richard II‟s position changed. Although
he did not try to enforce the tax, he refused to keep his promise to give the peasants their other demands. “Serfs you are, and
serfs you shall remain”, he said. But the danger of revolt by the angry poor was a warning to the king, the nobles and to the
wealthy of the city of London.
Towards the end of the fourteenth century, Richard II was the second king to be killed by ambitious lords. He had made
himself extremely unpopular by his choice of advisers. Unlike Edward II, however, Richard II had no children. There were
two possible successors. One was the earl100 of March, the seven-year-old grandson of Edward III‟s second son. The other
was Henry of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt. Henry was stronger; he won the support of other powerful nobles and took the
crown by force in 1367. His later years were marked by serious health problems. He had a disfiguring skin disease and, more
seriously, suffered acute101 attacks of some grave illness from 1405 to his fatal bout in 1413. He was succeeded by Henry V.
Henry V, the second English monarch who came from the house of Lancaster, assumed control of the country in 1413 and
embarked on war with France in the ongoing Hundred Years‟ War between the two nations. His military successes
culminated in his famous victory at the Battle of Agincourt (1415) and saw him come close to conquering France. After
months of negotiation with Charles VI of France, the Treaty of Troyes (142) recognised Henry V as regent and heir apparent
to the French throne, and he was subsequently married to Charles‟s daughter, Catherine of Valois. Following Henry V‟s
sudden and unexpected death in France two years later, he was succeeded by his infant son, who reigned as Henry VI.
Henry VI, who had become king as a bay, grew up to be simple-minded and book-loving. He hated the warlike102 nobles, and
was an unsuitable king for such a violent society. But he was a civilised and gentle man. He founded two places of learning
that still exist: Eton College not far from London, and King‟s College in Cambridge. He could happily have spent his life in
such places of learning, but Henry simple-mindedness gave way to periods of mental illness. England was ruled by a mentally
ill king who was bad at choosing advisers. It was perhaps natural that the nobles began to ask questions about who should be
ruling the country. The discontented nobility between those who remained loyal to Henry VI, the „Lancastrians‟, and those
who supported the Duke of York, the „Yorkists‟. Then began a series of wars for control of the throne of England fought
between the two houses, known as the War of the Roses, associating the House of Lancaster with a red rose and the House of
York with a white rose. The duke of York was the heir of the earl of March, who had lost the competition for the throne when
Richard II was deposed in 1399.
In 1460 the duke of York claimed the throne for himself. After his death in battle, his son Edward took up the struggle and
won the throne in 1461 as Edward IV. Edward IV put Henry VI into the tower of London, but nine years later a new
Lancastrian army rescued him and chased Edward IV out of the country. Like the Lancastrians, Edward IV was able to raise
another army; he had the advantage of his popularity with the merchants of London and the southeast of England. This was
because the Yorkists had strongly encouraged profitable trade, particularly with Burgundy. Edward IV returned to England in
1471 and defeated the Lancastrians. At last, Edward IV was safe on the throne. Henry VI died in the Tower of London and
died soon after, almost certainly murdered.
The war between York and Lancaster would probably have stopped then if Edward IV‟s son had been old enough to rule, and
if Edward‟s brother, Richard of Gloucester, had not been so ambitious. But when Edward IV died in 1483, his own two sons,
Edward V and his younger brother, were put in the tower by Richard of Gloucester. Richard took the crown and became King
Richard III. A month later the two princes were murdered. Richard III had a better reason than most to wish his two nephews
dead, but his guilt has never been proved.
Richard III was not popular. Lancastrians and Yorkists both disliked him. In 1485 a challenger with a very distant claim to
royal blood through John of Gaunt landed in England with Breton soldiers to claim the throne. Many discontented lords, both
Lancastrians and Yorkists, joined him. His name was Henry Tudor, Duke of Richmond, and he was half Welsh. He met
Richard III at Bosworth. Half of Richard‟s army changed sides, and the battle quickly ended in his defeat and death. Henry
Tudor was crowned King immediately, on the battlefield, as King Henry VII, the first monarch of the House of Tudor. In
order to find the peace, Henry VII literally married the enemy, Elizabeth of York. The war had finally ended.
100
Conde.
101
Agudo/a.
102
Belicoso, inclinado a la guerra.

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Tema 3. From the 16th to the 18th century: towards a protestant, parliamentary monarchy.
The Tudor period: 1485 – 1603. The century of Tudor role is often thought of as a most glorious period in English history.
Henry VII built the foundations of a wealthy nation state and a powerful monarchy. His son Henry VIII kept a magnificent
court and made the Church of England truly English by breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church. Finally, his
daughter Elizabeth brought glory to the new state by defeating the powerful navy of Spain, the greatest European power of
the time. There is, however, a less glorious view of the Tudor century: Henry VIII wasted the wealth saved by his father.
Elizabeth weakened the quality of government by selling official posts. She did this to avoid asking Parliament for money.
Henry VII (1485 – 1509). Henry VII was the first monarch of the House of Tudor. King of England and Lord of Ireland, he
won the throne when his forces defeated King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the culmination of the Wars of the
Roses. He was the last king of England to win his throne on the field of battle. He literally married the enemy, Elizabeth of
York. Henry VII was successfully in restoring the power and stability of the English monarchy after a civil war, and after a
reign of nearly 24 years. He was peacefully succeeded by his son, Henry VIII.
He was important in establishing the new monarchy than his son or his granddaughter, Elizabeth I. He had the same ideas and
opinions as the growing classes of merchants and gentleman farmers, and he based royal power on good business sense.
Henry VII firmly believed that war and glory were bad for businesses, and that business was good for state. He therefore
avoided quarrels either with Scotland in the north or France in the south. Perhaps most impactful to posterity was his
establishment of the Pound Avoirdupois as weights and measures standard, which uses pounds and ounces as units.
Henry VII was fortunate. Many of the old nobility had died or been defeated in the recent wars, and their lands had gone to
the king. This meant that Henry VII had more power and more money than earlier kings. In order to establish his authority
beyond question, he forbade103 anyone, except himself, to keep armed men. Henry VII‟s aim was to make the Crown
financially independent, and the lands and the fines104 he took from the old nobility helped him to do this. Henry also raised
taxes for wars which he then did not fight. He never spent money unless he had to.
Henry VII also commissioned John Cabot, a Venetian navigator, to explore the seas, whose 1497 discovery of the coast of
North America is commonly held to have been the first European exploration of the mainland of North America since the
Norse visits to Vinland in the 11th century. Furthermore, he established dynastic relations, marrying his daughter Margaret
Tudor to James IV of Scotland, and his heir Henry VIII to the Spanish Princess Catherine of Aragon.
In 1502, Henry VII‟s first son and heir-apparent, Arthur, Prince of Wales, died suddenly from a viral respiratory illness.
Terribly saddened for the death of her eldest son and the blow of losing her newborn daughter, Elizabeth of York‟s health
suffered a fatal decline. After nine days of agony, the Queen died. Her death brought to the King an unrecoverable pain, and
he died in 1509, when his son Henry VIII succeeded him.
Henry VIII (1509 – 1547). Henry VIII was king of England, succeeding his father Henry VII, as the second Tudor monarch.
He was quite unlike his father. He was cruel, wasteful with money, and interested in pleasing himself. He wanted to become
an important influence in European politics, but much had happened in Europe since England had given up its efforts to
defeat France in the Hundred Years‟ War. France was now more powerful than England, and Spain was even more powerful,
because it was united with the Holy Roman Empire (which included much of Central Europe). He first unsuccessfully allied
himself with Spain, and when he was no rewarded, he changed sides. When friendship with France did not bring him
anything, Henry VIII started talking again to Charles V of Spain.
He spent too much on maintaining a magnificent court, and on wars from which England had little to gain, than his father‟s
carefully saved money was soon gone. He was always looking for new sources of money and disliked the power of the
Church in England because, since it was an international organisation, he could not completely control it.
In 1536, the English Parliament passed the „Act of Union‟, which claimed that Wales was now definitely incorporated within
England. Ireland, at the beginning of Henry VIII‟s reign, was effectively divided into three zones: the Pale, Leinster and
Munster, and the Gaelic Connaught and Ulster. Between 1536 -37, a subservient Irish Parliament passed into law statutes
referring to the reformation that had already impacted England and Wales. In 1541, the Irish Parliament bestowed105 on
Henry the title of „King of Ireland‟ and by 1547; nearly all the major figures in Ireland had accepted Henry VIII‟s supremacy.
103
Prohibió. To forbid = prohibir.
104
Multas.
105
Otorgó. To bestow = otorgar.

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Henry VIII is best known for his six marriages and, in particular, his efforts to have his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon,
annulled. He married the widow of his elder brother Arthur in 1510, but by 1526 she had still not had a son who survived
infancy, but a daughter, Mary I, and was now unlikely to do so. He tried to persuade the Pope to nullify this marriage, but the
Pope was controlled by Charles V, who was Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, and Catherine‟s nephew. For both
political and family reasons he wanted Henry to stay married to Catherine. The Pope did not wish to anger either Charles V or
Henry VIII, but eventually he was forced to do as Charles V wanted. He forbade Henry VIII‟s nullity of marriage.
Henry VIII was extremely angry and in 1531 he persuaded the bishops to make him head of the Church in England, and this
became law after Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534. It was a popular decision and the King was now free to
nullify his marriage and marry his new love, Anne Boleyn. He hoped Anne would give him a son to follow him on the throne.
Henry VIII‟s break with Rome was pure political. He had simply wanted to control the Church and to keep its wealth on its
own kingdom. He did not approve of the new ideas of Reformation Protestantism introduced by Martin Luther in Germany
and John Calvin in Geneva. Like his father, Henry VIII governed England through his close advisers, men who were
completely dependent on him for their position; but when he broke with Rome, he used Parliament to make the break legal.
Through several Acts of Parliament between 1532 and 1536, England became politically a Protestant country, even though
the popular religion was still Catholic. Henry proved that his break with Rome was neither a religious nor a diplomatic
disaster. He remained loyal to Catholic religious teaching, and executed Protestants who refused to accept it. He even made
an alliance with Charles V of Spain against France.
From his marriage with Anne Boleyn, was born Elizabeth I. After her birth, Anne could not have a successful pregnancy. She
was accused and arrested for adultery, incest, and any other reason that allowed Henry VIII to marry some other and
procreate legitimate male heirs. She was beheaded.
Henry VIII then felt attracted to a woman who has been Anne Boleyn‟s lady, Jane Seymour. She gave him his only male heir,
Edward VI of England, who died at the age of fifteen. Jane died twelve days after birth due to a puerperal fever.
The fourth wife of the King was Anne of Cleves, for only six months. Actually, the marriage was never consummated, and
Anne was never crowned Queen, allowing annulment. Anne was rewarded with properties, including Hever Castle, former
residence of the Boleyn family. She received the title of „Sister of the King‟, and remained a friend of him and his children.
No descendants.
Catherine Howard was Henry VIII‟s fifth wife, sometimes known as “the rose without a thorn” 106, she was Anne Boleyn‟s
cousin. Henry was informed of her alleged107 adultery and after the annulment of the marriage, was decapitated in the Tower
of London. No descendents.
Catherine Parr was the sixth and last wife of Henry VIII. Henry VIII died in 1547 leaving behind his wife and three children.
She showed herself to be to be the restorer of Henry VIII‟s court as a family home for his children. Perhaps Catherine‟s most
significant achievement was Henry VIII‟s passing of an act that confirmed both Mary I‟s and Elizabeth I‟s line in succession
for the throne, despite the fact that they had both been illegitimate by nullity of marriage or remarriage.
Edward VI (1547 – 1553). At the moment of Henry VIII‟s death, the succession was not clear. Edward VI was only a child
when he became king, so the country was ruled by a council. All the members of this council were from the new nobility
created by the Tudors. They were keen108 Protestant reformers but most English people still believed in the Old Catholic
religion. In 1552, Edward VI introduced a very protestant prayer book to make sure that all churches followed the new
religion.
Mary I (1553 – 1558). In 1553, King Edward VI died aged sixteen, and Mary, the Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon
and an openly Catholic married to Philip II of Spain, became Queen. A group of nobles tried to put Jane Grey, a Protestant,
on the throne. But Mary succeeded in entering London and took control of the kingdom. She was supported by the people,
who were angered by the greed of the Protestant nobles. She will pass to history as Bloody Mary, because during her five-
year reign, she began burning people, and three hundred people supporters of Protestantism died, especially at court.
106
La rosa sin espinas.
107
Alegado, supuesto.
108
Entusiasta.

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Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603): the virgin Queen. Elizabeth I, Mary‟s half sister, daughter of Anne Boleyn, was lucky to become
queen when Mary I died in 1558. Mary I had considered killing her, because she was an obvious leader for Protestant revolt.
Elizabeth I had been shrewd109 and wise enough to say nothing, do nothing, and to express neither Catholic nor Protestant
views while Mary I lived. And Philip II of Spain persuaded Mary to leave Elizabeth unharmed.
When she became queen, she wanted to find a peaceful answer to the English Reformation. She wanted to bring together
again those parts of English society which were in religious disagreement, and she wanted to make England prosperous. In
some ways, the kind of Protestantism finally agreed in 1559 remained closer to the Catholic religion than other Protestant
groups. But Elizabeth made sure that the Church was still under her authority, unlike politically dangerous forms of
Protestantism in Europe. In a way, she made a Church part of the state machine, attracting Catholics and Protestants.
The struggle between Catholics and Protestants continued to endanger Elizabeth I‟s position for the next thirty years. The cult
of the Virgin Mary was replaced by the cult of herself. Both France and Spain were catholic and Elizabeth and her advisers
wanted to avoid open quarrels with both of them. This was not easy, because both the French and Spanish kings wanted to
marry Elizabeth and so join England to their own country. And also there was a danger from those Catholic nobles still in
England who wished to remove Elizabeth and replace her with the Queen of Scotland, Mary of Scotland, who was a catholic.
Mary Queen of Scots, was the heir to the English throne because she was Elizabeth I‟s closest living relative110 and because
Elizabeth I had not married. When Mary of Scots made enemies of some of her nobles, she escaped to the safety of England
in order to avoid them. Elizabeth I, however, kept her as a prisoner for almost twenty years. It was difficult for Elizabeth I to
decide what to do with Mary, but she finally agreed to Mary of Scots‟ execution in 1587, because Mary Queen of Scots had
named Philip II of Spain as her heir to the throne of England, and because with this claim, Spain had decided to invade
England. Elizabeth I no longer had a reason to keep Mary alive.
Since Elizabeth would never name her successor, her senior adviser was addressed to prepare the way for a smooth 111
succession in secret. He therefore entered into a coded negotiation with James VI of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots‟ son,
who had a strong but unrecognised claim. Elizabeth I‟s church is pretty much similar to the English Church that exists today.
The Queen‟s health remained fair until the autumn of 1602, when a series of deaths among her friends plunged112 her into a
severe depression. In March 1603 Elizabeth fell sick and remained in a settle and irremovable melancholy, and sat
motionless113 on a cushion114 for hours on end. She finally died on 24 March at Richmond Palace, near to Thames River. A
few hours later, James VI of Scotland was proclaimed as James I of England.
The Stuart period: 1603 – 1714. The year Elizabeth I dies, James VI of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots, succeeded
her as James I of England. That is the year of union between the English and Scottish crowns. Like the Tudors, James I was a
firm believer in the authority of the Crown. Few in England could have liked the idea of a new king coming from Scotland,
their wild northern neighbour. The fact that England accepted him suggests that his leading statesmen had confidence in
James I‟s skills. However, the Stuart monarchs, from James I onwards, were less successful than the Tudors. They quarrelled
with the Parliament and this resulted in civil war (1642 -1649). The only king of England ever to be tried115 and executed was
a Stuart. The republic that followed was even more unsuccessful, and by popular demand, the dead king‟s son was called
back to the throne. The powers of Kings and Queens went down in this period and the power of Parliament growth.
James I (1603 – 1625). Son of Mary Queen of Scots, succeeded Elizabeth I when she died. He was brought up as a
Protestant, and was the first England‟s king of the Stuart dynasty. Like Elizabeth I, he tried to rule without Parliament as
much as possible; he preferred to rule with a small council. He was clever and well educated. As a child in Scotland he had
been kidnapped by groups of nobles and has been forced to give in to the Kirk116. Because of this, he had developed strong
beliefs and opinions. The most important of these was his beliefs in the divine right of kings. He believed that the King was
chosen by God and therefore only God could judge him. He expressed these opinions openly, however, and this led to trouble
with Parliament.
109
Perspicaz.
110
Pariente.
111
Tranquilo/a.
112
To plung = sumir. Sumieron.
113
Inmóvil.
114
Cojín.
115
Juzgado.
116
Scottish Word for Church. The Church of Scotland.

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In 1605, took place a failed assassination attempt against James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Guy
Fawkes: the gunpowder plot117. The plan was to blow up the House of Parliaments in order to kill the king, his family and
most of the protestant aristocracy. The conspirators planed to kidnap the King‟s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, to be installed
as the Catholic head of state. The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter, and Fawkes was discovered the
night before guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder and arrested. The discovery in time of the conspiracy prevented the
overthrow118 of the Protestant dynasty of the Stuarts and served as a pretext for a tightening119 of anti-Catholic measures.
When Elizabeth I died she left James I with a huge debt120, and he had to ask Parliament to raise a tax to pay it. Parliament
agreed, but in return insisted on the right to discuss James I‟s home and foreign policy. James I, however, insisted that he
alone had the „divine right‟ to make these decisions. Parliament disagreed, and it was supported by the law. James I had made
the mistake of appointing Elizabeth I‟s minister, Sir Edward Coke, as Chief Justice. Coke made decisions based on the law
which limited the king‟s power. He judged that the king was not above the law, and more important, that the king and his
council could not make new laws; laws could only be made by Act of Parliament. James I removed Coke from the position of
Chief Minister, but Coke reminded Parliament of Magna Carta, interpreting it as the great charter of English freedom.
Although this was not really true, his claim was politically useful to Parliament, being this the first quarrel between James I
and his Parliament, lasting during his entire reign, and that of his son Charles.
James was seen as a benevolent towards Catholics; he sought121 uniformity in religion, so that, he permitted the translation of
the Bible. He attempted to introduce episcopalianism, bishops and hierarchy within Kirk, becoming more similar to the
Church of England. Is important to say that he was not prone122 to Puritanism; Puritans considered the king too Catholic and
they tried to change the Church and create a separate Church from the Churches of Scotland and England, but James I did not
allow it.
In 1620, a group of puritans known as the Pilgrim Fathers123 went and settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, but they really
wanted to arrive in Virginia. They were on board in the Mayflower in order to spread the Calvinist doctrines separated of the
English Church, and establish a new colony in North America. While seeking religious freedom for their own group, the
Pilgrims exhibited intolerance to other faiths.
In early 1625, James I was plagued by severe attacks of arthritis, gout and fainting fits. He finally died on March 27 during a
violent attack of dysentery, with Buckingham at his bedside.
Charles I (1625 – 1649). He succeeded his father after his death. He was the second king of the Stuart dynasty. Right after
his succession, Charles I quarrelled with the Parliament of England which sought to curb124 his royal prerogative. The
relations with Parliament were more stained125 during his reign than his father‟s. Charles I believed in the divine right of
kings, and thought he could govern according to his own conscience. His religious policies, coupled to his marriage to a
Roman Catholic, generated the antipathy and mistrust126 of reformed groups such as the English Puritans and the Scottish
Covenanters, who though his views too Catholic.
Charles I found himself quarrelling even more bitterly with the Commons than his father had done, mainly over money, and
finally, he dissolved Parliament. However, Charles I‟s needs for money, forced to recall Parliament, but each time he did so,
he quarrelled with it.
Charles I shared his father‟s dislike of Puritans. He had married a Catholic, and the marriage was unpopular in Protestant
Britain. However, in a secret treaty with his brother in law, King Louis XIII of France, he promised to relax restrictions on
Catholics, and actually reformed the Church of England in catholic-like manner.
A civil war appeared: English against English, Charles I against Parliament. Even though Charles I was Scottish and a Stuart,
Scotland lost power because the King was in London and England was ruling. Charles I found himself defeated twice at war
because he thought he was ruling with the permission of God.
117
La rebelión de la pólvora.
118
Derrocamiento.
119
Endurecimiento.
120
Deuda.
121
Buscó.
122
Propenso.
123
Padres peregrinos.
124
Frenar.
125
Tensas.
126
Descofiana.

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Charles I was held under house arrest by Parliament in 1645. In January 1649, the House of Commons indicted him a charge
of treason, which was rejected by the House of Lords. The idea of trying a King was a novel one. Anyway, Charles I was
accused of treason against England by using his power to pursue his personal interest rather the good of the country.
Reflecting the modern concept of command responsibility, the indictment held him guilty of making war against his kingdom
and Parliament and all the treasons and the murders of over 6% of the population who died in war. Charles I insisted that the
trial was illegal, claiming that no court had jurisdiction over a monarch and that his own authority to rule had given to him by
God. Charles beheading was scheduled for January 31, 1649 in front of the Banqueting House.
Interregnum (Commonwealth 1649 – 1660). Several Members of Parliaments commanded the Parliamentarian Army. Of
theses, the strongest was Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan. He had created a new model army, the first regular force from which the
British army of today develop. Instead of country people or gentry127, Cromwell invited into his army educated men who
wanted to fight for their beliefs.
King Charles I died bravely. As his head was cut from his body, the large crowd groaned128. Perhaps the execution was
Charles‟s own greatest victory, because most people now realised that they did not want Parliamentary rule, and were sorry
that Charles I was not still king. From 1649 – 1660, Britain was a Republic, but the Republic was not a success. Cromwell
and his friends created a government far more severe than Charles I‟s had been. They had got rid of the monarchy, and they
now got rid of the House of Lords and the Church of England.
The Scots were shocked by Charles I‟s execution. They invited his son, whom they recognised as King Charles II, to join
them and fight against the English parliamentary army. But they were defeated, and Charles II himself was lucky to escape to
France. Scotland was brought under English republican rule, even though never recognised the authority of Cromwell.
The army remained the most powerful force in the land. Disagreements between the army and Parliament resulted In
Parliament‟s dissolution in 1653. From that year, Britain was governed by Cromwell alone. He became “Lord Protector”,
with far greater powers than King Charles I had had. His efforts to govern the country through the army were extremely
unpopular, and the idea of using the army to maintain law and order in the kingdom has remained unpopular ever since.
Cromwell‟s government was unpopular for other reasons. For example people were forbidden to celebrate Christmas and
Easter, everybody wore black, music and theatre were forbidden as well, even in Church. However, he refused being King.
When Cromwell died in1658, the protectorate, as his republican administration was called, collapsed. He was succeeded by
his son, but Richard Cromwell was not a good leader and the army commanders soon started to quarrel among themselves.
One of these decided to act. In 1660 he marched to London, arranged for free elections and invited Charles II to return to his
kingdom. The republic was over. When Charles II returned to England as the publicly accepted king, the laws and Acts of
Cromwell‟s government were automatically cancelled. On 30 January 1661 (the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles
I), Cromwell‟s body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, and was subjected to a posthumous execution. His disinterred
body was hanged in chains at Tyburn, and then thrown into a pit129. Cromwell‟s severed130 head was displayed131 on a pole132
outside Westminster Hall until 1685.
Charles II (1660 – 1685): restoration. Son of Charles I, was elected King of England after Oliver Cromwell‟s death.
Charles managed his return with skill. Although Parliament was once more as weak as it had been in the time of James I and
Charles I, the new king was careful to make peace with his father‟s enemies. Only those who had been responsible for his
father‟s execution were punished. Charles shared his father‟s belief in divine right. And he greatly admired the magnificent,
all-powerful, absolute ruler of France, Louis XIV.
Charles II hoped to make peace between the religious different groups. He wanted to allow Puritans and Catholics who
disliked the Anglican Church to meet freely. But Parliament was most Anglican and would not allow this. Before the Civil
War, Puritans looked to Parliament for protection against the King. Now they hoped that the King would protect them against
the Parliament. Parliament knew Charles was attracted to the Catholic Church and was always afraid that he would become a
Catholic. For this reason Parliament passed the Test Act in 1673, which prevented any Catholic from holding public office.
Fear of Charles‟s interest in Catholic Church and of the monarchy becoming too powerful also resulted in the first political
parties in Britain.
127
Alta burguesía.
128
Gimió.
129
Hoyo, fosa.
130
Cortado/a.
131
Mostrado/a, exhibido/a.
132
Poste.

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One of these parties was a group of Members of Parliament who became known as “Whigs”, a rude name for cattle drivers133
and the future liberal party, which is partly known as Liberal Democratic Party today. The Whigs were afraid of an absolute
monarchy, and of the Catholic faith which they connected it. They also wanted to have no regular or „standing‟ army. In spite
on their fear of a Catholic king, the Whigs believed strongly in allowing religious freedom. Because Charles II and his wife
had no children, the Whigs feared that the Crown would go to Charles‟s Catholic brother, James. They wanted to prevent this,
but they were undecided over who they did want as a king.
The Whigs were opposed by another group, nicknamed “Tories”, an Irish name for thieves, the conservators. It is difficult to
give a simple definition of each party, because they were loosely formed groups. Generally speaking, however, the Tories
upheld the authority of the Crown and the Church and were natural inheritors of the “Royalist” position. The Whigs were not
against the Crown, but they believed that its authority depended upon the consent of Parliament. These two parties, the Whigs
and the Tories, became the basis of Britain‟s two-party parliamentary system of government.
The struggle over Catholicism and the Crown became a crisis when news was heard of a Catholic plot to murder Charles and
put his brother James on the throne. In fact the plan did not exist. The story had been spread as a clever trick to frighten
people and to make sure that James and the Catholics did not come to power. The trick worked. Parliament passed an act
forbidding any Catholic to be a member of either the Commons or the Lords.
Parliament had a word for those who chose to follow another religion, “dissenter”, and a person whose religion beliefs are not
the same as the beliefs of the Church of his /her country. If a person were a Catholic, that person could not be a member of
the Parliament or attend to the University.
Charles II died as a Catholic, but he kept it in secret because if people would have known it, another revolution would have
happened in England. Charles II was deemed the “Merrie Monarch”. Despite all that he had been through, he was remarkable
light-hearted. He had a fondness134 for the style of France, and much of his decorating was modelled after French inspirations.
As a consequence of the re-established Church of England, he became protector of Arts and Science, and reopened and
frequented the theatre because of his fascination with actresses.
In 1660, King Charles II founded The Royal Society, a learned society for science and is possibly the oldest such society still
in existence. It promotes science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing
scientific advice for policy, fostering international and global co-operation, education and public engagement.
In 1665, Charles was faced with a great health crisis: the Great Plague of London. The death toll 135 reached a peak of 7.000
per week in September. Adding to London‟s woes136, but marking the end of the plague, was what later became known as the
Great Fire of London in 1666, which consumed about 13.200 houses and 87 churches, including St. Paul‟s Cathedral. Charles
and his brother James joined and directed the fire-fighting effort. The public blamed Catholic conspirators for the fire,
although it had actually started in a bakehouse in Pudding Lane. The houses were made of wooden structures, and the street
pattern was medieval (very narrow streets); this explain why the area known as the City of London was completely destroyed
in almost a day, but the king took advantage of the situation for re-building the city. An ambitious architect, Christopher
Wren, had his opportunity. He did design 51 new churches as well as the new St. Paul‟s Cathedral, his masterpiece.
Charles II married Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese Princess, and she introduces the habit of drinking tea. They did not
have child, and Charles II‟s sons were all bastards, so when he died, his brother James succeeded him as James II.
James II (1685 – 1688). James II became king after his brother‟s death in 1685. The Tories and Anglicans were delighted,
but not for long. James had already shown his dislike of Protestants while he had been Charles II‟s governor in Scotland.
Then he tried to remove the laws which stopped the Catholics from taking positions in government and Parliament. He was
openly Catholic, so he tried to bring back the Catholic Church and allow it to exist beside the Anglican Church. But
Parliament was very angry, particularly the Tories and Anglicans who had supported him against the Whigs.
In spite of their anger, Tories, Whigs and Anglicans did nothing because they could look forward to the succession of James‟s
daughter, Mary. Mary was Protestant and married to the Protestant ruler of Holland, William of Orange. But this hope was
destroyed with the news in June 1688 that James‟s son had been born. The Tories and Anglicans now joined the Whigs in
looking for a Protestant rescue.
133
Conductores de ganado.
134
Afición, cariño.
135
Total.
136
Dolores, aflicciones.

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The political results of the events were called The Glorious Revolution. Parliament invited William of Orange to invade
Britain. It was a dangerous thing for William to do, but he was already at war with France and he needed the help of Britain‟s
wealth and armed forces. William entered to London, but the crown was offered only to Mary. William said he would leave
Britain unless he also became king, and Parliament had no choice but to offer the crown to both William and Mary. James II
fled137 from England, and Parliament decided in 1689 that, because of that, James II had lost his right to the crown.
Leading a French army, James II invaded Ireland in 1689. Irish Parliament proclaimed him king, but he was defeated at the
Battle of Boyne in 1690. He died in exile in France in 1701. After his death, Catholic bastard male descendants would stage
rebellions.
Mary II (1688 – 1694) and William III (1688 – 1702). The fact that Parliament made William III king, not by inheritance138
but by their choice, was revolutionary. Parliament was now beyond question more powerful than the king, and would remain
so. Its power over the monarch was written into the Bill of Rights in 1689. Although it was a union of crowns, the Parliament
was in England and not in Scotland. They did not talk about Great Britain; they talked about the King of England, Scotland
and Ireland. The king was now unable to raise taxes or keep an army without the agreement of Parliament, or to act against
any Member of Parliament for what he did or say in Parliament.
In 1701 Parliament finally passed the Act of Settlement, to make sure only a Protestant could inherit 139 the crown. It stated
that if Mary II had no children, the crown would pass to her sister Anne. If she also died without children, it would go to a
granddaughter of James I, Sophia of Hanover, who has married the German elector of Hanover and her children. The Act of
Settlement was important and had remained in force ever since, although the Stuarts tried three times to regain the crown.
Even today, if a son or daughter of the monarch becomes Catholic, he or she cannot inherit the throne.
Anne I (1702 – 1714). Mary II and William III died childless, and Mary II‟s sister succeeded them in throne as Anne I in
1702, William III‟s year of death. Neither Scotland, nor Ireland accepted the removal of James II peacefully. Scotland was
still a separate kingdom, although James II had been James VII of Scotland. The English wanted England and Scotland to be
united, but the English Act of Settlement was not law in Scotland. While Scotland remained legally free to choose its own
king there was a danger that this might be used to put a Stuart back on the throne.
On the other hand, Scotland needed to remove the limits on trade with England from which it suffered economically. The
English Parliament offered to remove these limits if the Scots agreed the union with England. In 1707, the Act of Union made
complete the union between Scotland and England. From that moment both countries no longer had separate Parliaments and
a new Parliament of Great Britain, the new name of the state, met for the first time. Scotland, however, kept its own separate
legal and judicial system, and its own separate Church.
During the seventeenth century Britain‟s main enemies were Spain, Holland and France. War with Holland resulted from
competition in trade. After three wars in the middle of the century, when Britain had achieved the trade position it wanted,
peace was agreed, and Holland and Britain co-operated against France.
Charles II died childless, leaving a conflict between Phillip of Anjou and Charles from Austria, from the House of Habsburg.
England got involved in this War of Spanish Succession supporting the Habsburg candidate. Britain also wanted to limit
French power, which had been growing under Louis XIV. By the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France accepted limits on its
expansion, as well as political settlement for Europe. France accepted Queen Anne instead of James II‟s son as the true
monarch of Britain. In the war, Britain also won the rock of Gibraltar and Menorca, and could now control the entrance to the
Mediterranean.
The capture of foreign land was important for Europe‟s economic development. At this stage, Britain has a smaller empire
abroad than either Spain or Holland. But it had greater variety. On the east coast of America, Britain controlled about twelve
colonies. Of far greater interest were the new possessions in the West Indies, where sugar was grown. During this time
Britain also established its first trading settlements in India, on both the West and East coasts. The East India Company did
not interfere in Indian politics. Its interest was only in trade. A hundred years later, however, competition with France
resulted in direct efforts to control Indian politics, either by alliance or by the conquest of Indian princely states.
In England, the two-party system got strengthened and Queen Anne I personally preferred the Tories. Her lack of issue
caused the House of Hanover to succeed her in 1714 when Queen Anne I died childless.
137
Huyó.
138
Herencia.
139
Heredar.

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The 18th century: Georgian Britain, House of Hanover. When Queen Anne I, the last of the Stuarts, died childless in 1714,
it was not entirely certain that the Protestant ruler of Hanover, George, would become king. There were some Tories who
wanted the deposed James II‟s son to return to Britain as James III. If he had given up Catholicism and accepted the Anglican
religion he probably have been crowned James III. When the King of Hanover, George, succeeded Queen Anne I as George I,
made it for all Kings of Great Britain, until Victoria I, to also be Kings of Hanover. After George I‟s death, his son succeeded
him as George II, and after George II‟s death, also his son succeeded him as George III, who was the first Hanoverian to be
born in Britain. Then, George III‟s son, George IV, would only be king of Britain from 1820-1830, when he was succeeded
by William IV, and after him came Victoria I. During this time is called Georgian Britain because first four Hanoverian
Kings were called George.
In 1715, James III started a rebellion against George I, who had by this time arrived from Hanover. But the rebellion was a
disaster, and George I‟s army had little difficulty in defeating the English and Scottish „Jacobites‟, as Stuart supporters were
known. Because of the Tory connection with the Jacobites, King George I allowed the Whigs to form his government.
Government power was increase because the new king spoke only German, and did not seem very interested in his new
kingdom. Robert Walpole is considered Britain‟s first Prime Minister, who remained the greatest political leader for over
twenty years. Walpole came to power as a result of his financial ability. In the countries of Europe, kings and queens had
absolute power. Britain was unusual, and Walpole was determined to keep the Crown under the firm control of Parliament.
He knew that with the new German monarchy, this was more possible than it had been before.
Walpole skilfully developed the idea that government ministers should work together in a small group, which was called the
„Cabinet‟. He introduced the idea that any minister who disagreed deeply with other Cabinet ministers was expected to
resign. From this basic idea grew another important rule in British politics: that all members of the Cabinet were together
responsible for policy decisions. Walpole built on the political results of the Glorious Revolution in 1688. It was he who
made sure that the power of the king would always be limited by the constitution.
The two-party system got finally consolidated: the Tories shared the traditional idea of respect for the monarchy and the
Anglican Church; the Whigs were supporters of Protestantism and shared a Parliamentary tradition. The politically stable
period of the time was only threatened140 by Jacobite rebellions
On the other hand, Scotland also suffered from the efforts of the Stuarts to win back the throne. The first Jacobite revolt to
win the crown for James II‟s son, in 1715, had been unsuccessful. The Stuarts tried again in 1745 when James II‟s grandson,
Prince Charles Edward Stuart, better known as “Bonny Prince Charlie”, landed on the west coast of Scotland. He persuaded
some clan chiefs to join him. Many of these chiefs had great difficulty persuading the men in their clans to join the revolt.
Most clans did not join the rebellion, and nor did the men of Scottish Lowlands.
Bonny Prince Charlie was more successful at first than anyone could have imagined. His army of Highlanders entered
Edinburgh and defeated an English army in a surprise attack. Panic spread through England because much of the British army
was fighting the French. But success for Bonny Prince Charlie depended on Englishmen also joining his army. When the
Highland army was over halfway to London, it was clear that few of the English would join him, and the Highlanders
themselves were unhappy at being so far from home. The rebels moved back to Scotland. Early in 1746 they were defeated
by the British army at Culloden. The rebellion was finished.
The English army behaved with cruelty. Many Highlanders were killed, even those who had not joined the rebellion. Others
were sent to work in America. Their homes were destroyed, and their farm animals killed. The fear of the Highland danger
was so great that a law was passed forbidding Highlanders to wear their traditional skirt, the kilt. The old patterns of the kilt,
called tartans, the Scottish musical instrument, the bagpipe141, were also forbidden. Those who did not obey law were shot.
Imperial expansion. The expansion of the British power in America which started with Elizabeth I was not over at the time.
By 1750 Britain gradually had acquired an Empire in the Americas, along the West African coast and India: Newfoundland,
Nova Scotia, The Thirteen Colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Caroline, South Caroline and Georgia), Bermuda, Bahamas, British
Honduras, Jamaica and Lesser Antilles. In 1763 France cedes New France (Canada) to Britain and Britain acquired the
Spanish colony of Florida. In 1770 James Cook discovered the east coast of Australia, calling it New South Wales.
The British Empire owned a quarter part of the Earth.
140
Amenazado.
141
Cornamusa, gaita escocesa.

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Slave trade. Britain‟s Empire had first been built on trade and the need to defend this against rival European countries. In the
18th century, slave trade was Britain‟s major source of income142 for harbours such as Bristol and Liverpool. Slaves were
bought by England to West Africa, then send across the Atlantic to be sold in colonial America, and finally back to England
with cargo (rum, sugar).
The first success against slavery came when a judge ruled that “no man could be a slave in Britain”, and freed a slave who
had landed in Bristol. This victory gave a new and unexpected meaning to the words of the national song, “Britons never
shall be slave”. In fact, just as Britain had taken a lead in slavery and the slave trade, it also took the lead internationally in
ending them. The slave trade was abolished in law in 1807. But it took until 1833 for slavery itself to be abolished in all
British colonies.
The Industrial Revolution. Several influences came together at the same time to revolutionise Britain‟s industry: money,
labour, a greater demand for goods, new power, and better transport. By the end of the eighteenth century, some families had
made huge private fortunes. Growing merchant banks helped put this money to use.
Increased food production made it possible to feed large populations in the new towns. These populations were made up of
the people who had lost their land through enclosures143 and were looking for work. They now needed to buy things they had
never needed before. In the old days people in the villages had grown their own food, made many of their own clothes and
generally managed without having to buy very much. As landless workers these people had to buy food, clothing and
everything else they needed. This created an opportunity to make and sell more goods than ever before. The same landless
people who needed these things also became the workers who made them.
By the early eighteenth century simple machines had already been invented for basic jobs. They could make large quantities
of simple goods quickly and cheaply so that “mass production” became possible for the first time. Each machine carried out
one simple process which introduced the idea of “division of labour” among workers. This was to become an important part
of the industrial revolution.
By the 1740s the main problem holding back industrial growth was fuel. There was less wood, and in any case, wood could
not produce the heat necessary to make iron and steel either in large quantities or of high quality. But at this time the use of
coal144 for changing iron ore145 into good quality iron or steel was perfected, and this made Britain the leading iron producer
in Europe. This happened only just in time for the many wars in which Britain was to fight, mainly against France, for the rest
of the century. The demand for coal grew very quickly. In 1800 Britain was producing four times as much coal as it had done
in 1700, and eight times as much iron.
Increased iron production made it possible to manufacture new machinery for other industries. No one saw this more clearly
than John Wilkinson, a man with a total belief in iron. He built the largest ironworks in the country. He built the world‟s first
iron bridge, over the river Severn, in 1779. He saw the first iron boats made. He built an iron chapel for the new Methodist
religious sect, and was himself buried in an iron coffin. Wilkinson was also quick to see the value of new inventions. When
James Watt made greatly improved steam engine146 in 1769, Wilkinson improved it further by making parts of the engine
more accurately with his special skills in ironworking. In this way the skills of one craft helped the skills of another. Until
then steam engines had only been used for pumping147, usually in coal mines. But in 1781, Watt produced an engine with a
turning motion, made of iron and steel. It was a vital development because people were now no longer dependent on natural
power.
One invention led to another, and increased production in one area led to increased production in others. Other basic materials
of the industrial revolution were cotton and woollen148 cloth, which were popular abroad. In the middle of the century other
countries were buying British uniforms, equipment and weapons for their armies. To meet this increased demand, better
methods of production had to be found, and new machinery was invented which replaced handwork. The production of cotton
goods had been limited by the spinning process149, which could not provide enough cotton thread150 for the weavers.
142
Ingresos.
143
Recintos.
144
Carbón.
145
Mineral (iron, mineral de hierro).
146
Máquina de vapor.
147
To pump = bombear.
148
Lana.
149
Proceso de hilado.
150
Hilo.

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In 1764 a spinning machine151 was invented which could do the work of several hand spinners, and other improved machines
were made shortly after. With the far greater production of cotton thread, the slowest part of the cotton clothmaking industry
became weaving. In 1785, a power machine for weaving revolutionised clothmaking. It allowed Britain to make clothe more
cheaply than elsewhere, and Lancashire cotton cloths were sold in every continent. But this machinery put many people out
of work. It also changed what had been a “cottage industry”152 done at home into a factory industry, where workers had to
keep work hours and rules set down by factory owners.
In 1802, Richard Trevithick built one of his high-pressure steam engines to drive a hammer153 at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks
in Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan. With the assistance of Rees Jones, an employee of the iron works and under the
supervision of Samuel Homfray, the proprietor, he mounted the engine on wheels and turned it into a locomotive. In 1803,
Trevithick sold the patents for his locomotives to Samuel Homfray.
Homfray was so impressed with Trevithick‟s locomotive that he made a bet with another ironmaster, Richard Crawshay, that
Trevithick‟s steam locomotive could haul ten tons of iron along the Merthyr Tydfil Tramroad from Pen-y-Darren to
Abercynon, a distance of 9.7 miles. Amid154 great interest from the public, in 1804, it successfully carried 10 tons of iron, 5
wagons and 70 men the full distance in 4 hours and 5 minutes, an average speed of approximately 4 km/h.
The social effects of the industrial revolution were enormous. Workers tried to join together to protect themselves against
powerful employers. They wanted fair wages155 and reasonable conditions in which to work. But the government quickly
banned these „combinations‟ as the workers‟ societies were known. Riots156 occurred, led by the unemployed who had been
replaced in factories by machines. In 1799, some of these rioters, known as Luddites started to break up the machinery which
had put them out of work. The government supported the factory owners, and made the breaking of machinery punishable by
death. The government was afraid of a revolution like the one in France.
Something that made trade and manufacturing a reality was the English and Welsh canal. Roads were not as safe as
nowadays, and were slower than travelling on water. The canal made possible to people to ship everywhere in the UK. It was
faster and safer than the roads.
Social consequences of the Industrial Revolution: The Slums157. The working conditions were terrible during the
Industrial Revolution. As factories were being built, businesses were in need of workers. With a long line of people willing to
work, employers could set wages as low as they wanted because people were willing to do work as long as they got paid.
People worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day for six days a week. Men received about 8$ - 10$ dollars a week, women
received one-half the pay that men received, and children received even less. The use of children as labor for such long hours
with little paid led to the formation of labor unions.
Labor Unions formed because workers finally wanted to put a stop to long hours with little pay. They demanded more pay
and fairer treatment. They did not want children to work in factories because of the danger involved. Labor unions organised
strikes and protests. However, as more people were moving to the city to realise dreams of wealth and steady employment,
more workers became available.
Workers were housed close to the factories, to minimise transportation time and cost. This allowed the factory owners to
exert more control over the workers. Most factory owners were not willing to provide workers with good quality housing.
Instead, poorly-built, cheap and unsanitary settlements were erected. Workers paid high rents to live in these slums. Terraces,
small, identical houses built in rows, were hastily constructed, basically were earth floors and no running water, some of the
houses with communal toilets.
Terraced houses quickly became slums. The houses were overcrowded with workers. Several different families could occupy
the same house. Poor hygiene and sanitation had a number of consequences. There was a high infant mortality rate; few
children born in the slums survived past their fifth birthday. There were outbreaks of diseases such as typhus and cholera.
There were high rates of crime and drunkenness. In the crowded and dirty slums, there were few groups willing to police and
regulate behaviour.
151
Maquina de hilar.
152
Industria artesanal.
153
Martillo.
154
En medio.
155
Salarios.
156
Disturbios.
157
Barrios bajos.

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By the 1850s, conditions in the British slums gained public attention. Workers campaigned for improvements in housing and
sanitation. Parliament passed a number of public health acts which ordered the covering of sewers158 and other basic hygiene
procedures. While these acts improved conditions, they were ineffective in solving the ongoing housing and health problems.
Early democracy: the rotten159 boroughs160. Britain‟s democracy is the eldest in Europe. However, there was corruption in
constituencies (Robinocracy). Everybody in the constituency knew each other. There were both landowners and owners from
factories, so the workers voted for their boss with the hand up.
In 1720 there was an economic crisis and early speculation of the South Sea Company, a company that had the monopoly of
trade with an important part of the world, so this company moved a huge amount of money, but it was not how people had
thought. The prices of shares got down and a lot of families became poor. The power went to the land and factory owners, no
aristocratic people. By the end of the century, the substantial power was in the hand of the owners of industries. However, the
owners of land continued to be those who had most seats in Parliament, and landed elite still held the political reins of the
country.
Tema 4. The 19th, 20th and 21st centuries: From ‘Britannia rules the waves’ to ‘Cool Britannia’ and ‘Brexitania’.
Then 19th century: Victorian Britain. Britain, in the 19th century was at its most powerful and self-confident. After the
industrial revolution, nineteenth-century Britain was the „workshop‟ of the world. Until the last quarter of the century British
factories were producing more than any other country in the world. By the end of the century, Britain‟s empire was political
rather than commercial. Britain used the empire to control large areas of the world. The empire gave the British a feeling of
their own importance which was difficult to forget when Britain lost its power in the twentieth century. This belief of the
British in their own importance was at its height in the middle of the nineteenth century, among the new middle class, which
had grown with industrialisation.
1801: United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland. In 1789 the French Revolution began, and in 1793 France declared war
against Britain. The ideas of the French Revolution (liberty, equality, fraternity and democracy) plus the religious link, were
favoured by the Irish, and Ireland traditionally had been the back door to England. The Irish could see that religious
inequality had been abolished in France and that a democratic government had been set up. Irish Roman Catholics wanted
equality; Irish Protestants wanted Parliamentary reform. Both groups wanted economic reform.
Many moderate Irish politicians wanted Catholic emancipation and Parliamentary reform, but thought that Ireland should
support England in the crisis and wanted to preserve the link with Britain. However, there were others who were more
extreme in their views. Among these were Theobald Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald who formed the United
Irishmen in 1792 which aimed at “breaking the connection with England, asserting the independence of our country, uniting
all Irishmen in place of the denominations of Protestants and Catholics.” The organisation tried to united Dissenters and
Catholics against Anglican rule, and it grew rapidly. In 1793 the Irish Parliament was persuaded to pass the Catholic Relief
Act which gave Catholics the right to vote.
In 1795 Earl Fitzwilliam was made Lord Lieutenant161 of Ireland. He was a Whig and an Irish absentee162 landowner who
believed that Roman Catholics should have complete political equality. This he announced as a policy which raised hopes in
Ireland, but Fitzwilliam was recalled within three months on the King‟s orders and in disgrace.
After 1795 there were increasing incident of sectarian violence in Ireland, exacerbated by the attempts of the United Irishmen
to enlist French help in their struggle to free Ireland from English control. The Protestants in Ireland formed the Orange to
safeguard Protestantism in Ireland which merely escalated163 the problem.
In May 1798 and Irish rising occurred with the avowed164 aim of Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform. Many
peasants joined because they wanted tithes165 to be abolished; some educated men wanted independence. England‟s Prime
Minister believed that Ireland could not be allowed the luxury of an independent Parliament; therefore, he decided on an Act
of Union which would totally tied Ireland to Great Britain.
158
Alcantarillas.
159
Podrido.
160
Municipios.
161
Teniente.
162
Ausente.
163
Intensificó.
164
Declarado.
165
Dezmos.

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Ireland was England‟s first colony. In 1800 the Act of Union was passed by both the Irish and British Parliaments despite
much opposition. It was signed by George III in August 1800 to become effective on 1 January 1801. The Act of Union said
that:
 Ireland was to be joined to Great Britain into a single kingdom, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
 The Dublin Parliament was abolished; Ireland was to be represented at Westminster by Members of Parliament, all of
them Anglicans.
 The Anglican Church was to be recognised as the official Church of Ireland.
 There was to be free trade between Ireland and Britain.
 Ireland kept its own Courts of Justice and civil service.
 No Catholics were to be allowed to hold public office.
 There was to be no Catholic emancipation.
Ruling Ireland from Westminster solved nothing. The Union was a political expedient in wartime, solving none of the
grievances166 in Ireland over land, religion or politics. It had no social dimension at all. Ireland‟s economic problems were
also ignored. The Act did increase the sense of grievance in Ireland however.
Pitt the Younger, England‟s Prime Minister, did not see the Act of Union as a solution to the Irish problem. He knew that
social and economic reforms were essential, as was Catholic Emancipation. George III refused to allow full emancipation, so
Pitt resigned in protests because he had intended to follow the Act of Union with reforms.
The Act became a liability167 rather than an asset168. Peers169 holding Irish estates opposed concessions to Roman Catholics,
as did the King, because of vested170 interest and religious bigotry171. The threat172 to the status quo and potential violence
together with patriotic zeal173 against Catholics stopped full Catholic emancipation and all Pitt‟s intended reforms.
War with France and Napoleon. The loss of American colonies in 1776 was still recent. France‟s neighbours only slowly
realised that its revolution in 1789 could be dangerous for them. Military power and the authority of kingship were almost
useless against revolutionary ideas.
Several radicals sympathised with the cause of the French revolutionaries, and called for reforms in Britain. In other countries
in Europe such sympathy was seen as an attack to the aristocracy. But in England both the gentry174 and the middle class felt
they were being attacked, and the radicals were accused of putting Britain in danger.
The French Revolution had created fear all over Europe. The British government was so afraid that Revolution would spread
to Britain that it imprisoned radical leaders. It was particularly frightened that the army would be influenced by these
dangerous ideas.
As an island, Britain was in less danger, and as a result was slower than other European states to make war on the French
Republic. But in 1793 Britain went to war after France had invaded the Low Countries. One by one the European countries
were defeated by Napoleon, and forced to ally themselves with him. Most of Europe fell under Napoleon‟s control.
Britain decided to fight France at sea because it had a stronger navy, and because its own survival depended on control of its
trade routes. British policy was to damage175 French trade by preventing French ships, including their navy, from moving
freely in and out of French seaports. The commander of the British fleet, Admiral Horatio Nelson, won brilliant victories over
the French navy, near the coast of Egypt, at Copenhagen, and finally near Spain, at Trafalgar in 1805, where he destroyed the
French-Spanish fleet. Nelson was himself killed at Trafalgar, but became one of Britain‟s greatest national heroes.
In the same year as Trafalgar, in 1805, a British army landed in Portugal to fight the French. This army, with its Portuguese
and Spanish allies, was eventually commanded by Wellington, a man who had fought in India.
166
Agravios.
167
Pasivo.
168
Activo.
169
Compañeros.
170
Establecido.
171
Fanatismo.
172
Amenaza.
173
Celo.
174
Alta burguesía.
175
Dañar, perjudicar.

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But fighting the French on land was an entirely different matter. Almost everyone in Europe believed the French army, and
its generals, to be the best in the world. Wellington was one of the very few generals who did not. Like Nelson, he quickly
proved to be a great commander. After several victories against the French in Spain he invaded France. Napoleon, weakened
by his disastrous invasion of Russia, surrendered in 1814. But the following year he escaped and quickly assembled an army
in France. Wellington, with the timely help of the Prussian army, finally defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in Belgium in 1815.
Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901). Queen Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 to
1901, when she died in England, the second longest reign of any other British monarch in history. She moved to Buckingham
Palace, making it her official royal residence.
Queen Victoria, the only child of Edward, the Duke of Kent and King George III‟s fourth son, and Victoria Saxe-Saalfield-
Coburg, was queen of Great Britain for 63 years. Victoria‟s reign saw great cultural expansion; advances in industry, science
and communications; and the building of railways and the London Underground.
In 1840, she married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, so that, her reign was now from the House of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. At first, the British public did not warm up to the German Prince and he was excluded from any
official political position. At times their marriage was tempestuous, a clash of wills between two extremely strong
personalities. However, the couple were intensely devoted to each other and shared a strong enough affection to have nine
children. Prince Albert also became her strongest ally, helping her navigate her difficult political waters. In 1862, Victoria‟s
beloved Prince died of typhoid fever after several years of suffering from stomach ailments176. Victoria was devastated and
went into a 25-year seclusion177. Newspaper began to criticise he, and some even questioned the value of the monarchy.
Imperial expansion. Britain was interested in create trading post in some countries since the main source of income for the
British came from the manufactured products. A third part of the manufactured products of the world came from Britain. If a
country wanted prestige in Europe, it had to have colonies all around the world, and expansion eventually became a symbol
of status. The territorial expansion kept going up to 1919, as a consequence of the German defeat in WW1. The pick of
economical was in the middle of 20th century, and that is not the same of the territorial expansion. With the colonies, the
citizens became British. It was possible to go from South-Africa to the North, El Cairo, without going out from the British
Empire.
After Waterloo in 1815, most of islands such as Malta, Mauritius, Singapore, among others, became British. Most of them
were French possessions. But the jewel in the crown was India. In 1877, Queen Victoria became Empress 178 of India. India
was already under the crown since 1858, but this title was a gesture to link the monarchy with the empire further and bind
India more closely to Britain.
The White Man’s Burden. Under Queen Victoria‟s reign, Great Britain experienced unprecedented expansion in industry,
building railways, bridges, underground sewers179, and power distribution networks throughout much of the empire. There
were advances in science and technology.
Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who developed a theory of biological evolution, stating that all species of
organisms arise180 and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual‟s ability
to compete, survive and reproduce. This theory is called Darwinism or Darwinian Theory. In the early 20 th century, many
people believed in the concept of social Darwinism, where people came from apes181, and certain people were superior to
other based on their colour and race: Caucasian people were smarter than black people.
The White Man‟s Burden was a poem written by Rudyard Kipling in 1899, under the title „An Address to the United States‟.
In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain as a result of a revolution in Cuba. On the surface, it looked like the United
States merely wanted to help Cuba gain its independence from Spain. But by the end of the Spanish-American war, this was
obviously not the case. As the winner of the war, the United States controlled the Cuban government and also walked away
with the rights to Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. After decades of isolationism, the United States had finally become
an imperialist country.
176
Dolencias.
177
Reclusión.
178
Emperatriz.
179
Alcantarillas.
180
Resultar de.
181
Simios.

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The White Man‟s Burden was meant to both encourage and warn the United States. In Kipling‟s view, imperialism was not
just a way for countries to grab power; it was also a form of humanitarianism, a way to help less fortunate people around the
world. Kipling‟s poem explained that as an advanced nation, the United States was responsible for educating and civilizing
the native peoples it now controlled. This responsibility was the White Man‟s Burden.
Political stability. The power of the monarch went in decrease. Victoria‟s husband, Prince Albert, died young, and she
became mad and refused to appear in public, but the people did not understand why she was not reining the country. Queen
Victoria was madly in love with the person she married, a German man, but she felt more love for him than he felt for her.
When he died, she went crazy and suffered a deep depression. Because she refused for many years to appear in public, she
became known deeply unpopular and the widow of Windsor. People felt that there was a gap in power that needed to be
filled, so the Hanoverian King of Germany became King of England. Once again, the political role, the real effective power
of the monarch, decreased due to the mourning182 of Queen Victoria.
Democratic institution associated quick social changes with political instability, and British parliamentary politics went
through a major transition. The Tory Party split, forming the Liberal and Conservative Parties, and started a succession of
opposing administrations. Queen Victoria played a crucial role as mediator between arriving and departing prime ministers.
Although she detested Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone, she found ways to work with him, even during her
mourning period. She was particularly fond of Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who linked the monarchy to
the expansion of the empire, which helped restore public opinion following Queen Victoria‟s long seclusion after the death of
her beloved Prince Albert.
Social and political reforms. Robert Peel was famous for the creation of the body of police. In Britain, the police are called
Bobbies because of him. He managed to reduce the power of the aristocracy: Parliament insisted on regulate the price of corn.
Corn was produced in the countryside and it was controlled by the aristocracy. Robert, a member of the aristocracy, insisted
that the price of corn had to be reduced in order to avoid the misery of a large amount of population.
By 1891, education became free for people under 13 years old, so that it could be more accessible for people to going to
school. And better working conditions were granted by law.
Gradual enfranchisement183.
 By the end of the 19th century, universal male suffrage over 21 years old.
 In 1918, women over 30 enfranchised. Women could vote, but not in the same conditions that men could.
 Restrictions for Catholics and Dissenters gradually repealed184. A catholic could not vote until the end of the 19th
century, as the right to go to the university for Catholics, that in that time was not forbidden.
As consequences of the enfranchisement and social and political reforms, any attempt of revolution was averted 185, and
conditions for wealth and prosperity became better.
Victorian values186: values of the Protestant nation. There were great changes in social structure; most people now lived in
towns and cities. They no longer depended on country landowners for their living, but rather on the owners of industries.
These owners and the growing middle class of tradespeople and professionals held the real power in the country. Along with
their power went a set of values which emphasised hard work, thrift187, religious observance family, an awareness of one‟s
duty188, absolute honesty in public life and extreme respectability in sexual matters. This is set of values that now are called
Victorian, the monarch as embodiment189 of the nation‟s virtues. Millions of people came to the city from the countryside, so
they needed a place to live. Suburban sprawl190 was born this way.
The Great Exhibition (1851). The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, sometimes referred to as the
Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that
took place in Hyde Park, London, to expose culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century.
182
Luto.
183
Right to vote.
184
Derogado/a.
185
Evitado.
186
Valores.
187
Ahorrar.
188
Deber, obligación.
189
Encarnación
190
Extensión.

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This global exposition, organized by Prince Albert, embodies191, symbolizes and initiates the human being‟s eyes towards
progress and modernity; aimed to show the world the greatness of Britain‟s industry, it demonstrated in its time the
supremacy of Britain like the country more advanced industrially. British articles occupied more than half of the Crystal
Palace, reflecting the subtle192 conflict between the old and the new that was so preoccupied in 19th century Europe. Several
countries sent their products, within the categories however there could be seen many craft193 products. The British colonies
sent a variety of products that captivated the imagination of the British public. Moreover, it is here that the difference
between an emerging group and the world of the former has been initiated in comparison with the other countries after their
development in the Third World. At the end of the eighteenth century, France had produced more iron than Britain. By
1850Britain was producing more iron than the rest of the world together.
The greatest example of Britain‟s industrial power in the mid-nineteenth century was its railway system. Indeed, it was
mainly because of this new form of transport that six million people were able to visit in the Great Exhibition.
The Late Victorian Period. By the end of the 19th century, the growth of industry got slower, and the competition from other
industrialised nations such as USA and Germany got increased.
The 20th century: seeking a new position in the world. At the start of the twentieth century Britain was still the greatest
world power, but by the end of the century Britain was no longer a power at all, and was not even among the richest
European powers. Its power has ended as quickly as Spain‟s had done in the seventeenth century.
One reason for this sudden decline was the cost and effort of two world wars. Another reason was the cost of keeping up the
empire, followed by the economic problems involved in losing it. But the most important reason was the basic weaknesses in
Britain‟s industrial power, and particularly its failure to spend as much as other industrial nations in developing its industry.
Near the end of the century, Britain had lost much of its earlier self-confidence, but no one is sure what the reasons for this
were.
The First World War (1914 – 1918). Germany nearly defeated the allies, Britain and France, in the first few weeks of war in
1914. It had better trained soldiers, better equipment and a clear plan of attack. Apart from the Crimean War, this was
Britain‟s first European war for a century, and the country was quite unprepared for the terrible destructive powers of modern
weapons. At first, all those who joined the army were volunteers. But the war went on, and the numbers of deaths increased.
In 1961 the government forced to join the army whether they wanted to or not.
Despite the numbers of deaths, somehow the government had to persuade the people that in spite of such disastrous results
the war was still worth fighting. The nation was told that it was defending the weak (Belgium) against the strong (Germany),
and it was fighting for democracy and freedom. At the same time, popular newspapers encouraged the nation to hate
Germany and to want Germany‟s destruction. As a result, when Germany offered to make peace at the end of 1916, neither
the British nor the French government welcomed the idea.
The war at sea was more important than the war on land, because defeat at sea would have inevitably resulted in British
surrender, and Germany would have gained the control of the seas around Britain. When Russia, following the Bolshevik
revolution of 1917, made peace with Germany, the German generals hoped for victory against the allies. But German
submarine attacks on neutral shipping drew194 America into the war against Germany. The arrival of American troops in
France ended Germany‟s hopes, and it surrendered in November 1918.
In this atmosphere, France and Britain met to discuss peace at Versailles in 1919. Germany was not invited to the conference,
but was forced to accept its punishment, which was extremely severe.
When peace came there were great hopes for a better future. These hopes had been created by the government itself, which
had made too many promises about improved conditions of life for soldiers returning from the war. As soon as the war had
ended, the government started a big programme of building homes and improving health and education. But there was far less
progress than people had been led to hope for.
1900 – 1918. There was a fierce competition by the United States and Germany; even though they brought back their
political power, the economical one decreased. The British were self-compliance and they thought they were the most
powerful country on Earth.
191
Engloba.
192
Sutil.
193
Artesanal.
194
Atrajeron.

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An important political development during the war was the rapid growth of the Labour Party. Representatives of workers in
companies were fighting for workers rights. The trade unions195 themselves had grown enormously, from two million
members to five in 1914, and eight million by 1918, becoming stronger. As a consequence, the economy went down. When
all men were forced to go to the battlefield, they needed somebody to do the things they used to do in their absence. Women
joined in scene then. In 1903, a woman called Emmeline Pankhurst decided to create a new women-only group focused solely
on voting rights, the Women‟s Social and Political Union. In the years of war, Pankhurst encouraged women to join the war
effort and fill factory jobs so that men could fight on the front.
The contributions of women during wartime helped convince the British government to grant them limited voted rights for
women over 30 years of age, although the voting age for men was 21. In 1918, for the first time, all men aged twenty one and
some women over thirty were allowed to vote. The number of voters doubled from eight to sixteen million people, most of
whom belonged to the working class.
As a result of these changes, the Labour Party created in 1924 the first Labour government. The Labour Party, however, was
not “socialist”. Its leaders were, or had become, members of the middle classes. Instead of a social revolution, they wanted to
develop a kind of socialism that would fit the situation in Britain. This was partly because the Labour‟s leaders did not want
to frighten the voters. As a result of the Labour‟s success in 1924, the Liberal party almost completely disappeared. Liberals
with traditional capitalist ideas on the economy joined the Conservative Party, while most Liberal “reformers” joined the
Labour Party.
British Commonwealth. Before the war, it was difficult for Britain to keep its Empire united. The British colonies realised
that they could become a country, they could survive by their own, and so the thought of independence was born. What
Britain did, in order to avoid the independence, was give them home-rule: each of these territories stopped being ruled by
London and were given their own government, they became dominions. The origin of the, now, Commonwealth of Nations
can be found in the British Commonwealth. These territories were British‟s with self-government. Canada achieved dominion
status in 1867, Australia in 1901, New Zealand in 1907 and South Africa in 1910.
Before the beginning of First World War the British government had agreed to home rule for Ireland. However, it was afraid
that the Protestants in the north would start a civil war in Ulster if home rule was introduced. For this reason, when war began
in 1914, the government delayed196 the introduction of home rule, and called on Irishmen to join the army. Many thousands
did, encouraged by their Members of Parliament, who hoped that this show of loyalty would help Ireland win self-
government when the war ended.
There was another group of Irishmen, however, who did not see why they
should die for the British, who had treated Ireland so badly. They did not only
want home rule, but full independence. At Easter 1916, these republicans
rebelled in Dublin. They knew they could not win, but they hoped their rising
would persuade other Irishmen to join their republican movement. The “Easter
Rising” was quickly put down and most Irish disapproved of it. But the British
executed all the leaders, which was a serious mistake. The public was shocked,
not only in Ireland, but also in London. Irish Americans were also angry, just at
the moment when America had joined Britain in the war against Germany.
In the 1918 elections the republicans won in almost every area except Ulster.
Instead of joining the British parliament, they met in their own new Parliament,
the Dail in Dublin, and announced that Ireland was now a Republic. Irishmen
joined the republic‟s army, and guerrilla fighting against the British began. As a
result, the British government decided to make peace. In 1921 it agreed to the
independence of southern Ireland. But it also insisted that Ulster, or Northern
Ireland as it became known, should remain united with Britain.
The House of Windsor. After the First World War, due to the anti-German sentiment in the British Empire, the name of the
House of Saxe-Cobourg and Gotha to the House of Windsor in 1917 by King George V, grandson of Queen Victoria.
Separated completely the dynasty of its German origins, changed its official denomination by House of Windsor, which
alludes to the royal palace of that English city, built by George III. This is the denomination that the British monarchs have
conserved until the present time.
195
Sindicatos.
196
Retrasó.

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1918 – 1939. By 1922, Ireland was given its home rule as Irish Free State. The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 led to civil war
between the Irish themselves. By this treaty the new “Irish Free State” accepted continued British use of certain ports, the
sovereignty of the British Crown, and most important of all, the loss of Northern Ireland, which remained under British
control. The pro-Treaty forces won, and the republicans, who insisted that all Ireland, including Northern Ireland, should be
an independent republic, were defeated. But a group of republicans formed a new party, Fianna Fail, which won the election
of 1932 and the new Prime Minister, Eamon de Valera, began to undo the Treaty and in 1937 declared southern Ireland a
republic. The British Crown was now no longer sovereign in Ireland.
The women, who were given the right to vote in 1918 as long as they were over 30 years old, became able to vote at the age
of 21, as men, in 1928. Just before war in 1914 there had been an outbreak of strikes 197. Immediately after the war there were
further serious strikes, and in 1919 and 1921 soldiers were used to break these strikes, and force men back to work.
In 1926 the discontent led to a general strike by all workers. The reasons for the strike were complicated, but the immediate
cause was a coalminers‟ strike. An earlier miners‟ strike in 1921 had been defeated and the men had returned to work bitterly
disappointed with the mine owners‟ term. In 1925 mine owners cut miners‟ wages and another miners‟ strike seemed
inevitable. Fearing that this would seriously damage the economy, the government made plans to make sure of continued coal
supplies. Both sides, the government and the Trade Union Congress (representing the miners in this case), found themselves
unwillingly driven into opposing positions, which made a general strike inevitable. It was not what the Trade Union Congress
had wanted, and it proved deeply damaging to everyone involved.
The general strike ended after nine days, partly because members of the middle classes worked to keep services like transport,
gas and electricity going. But it also ended because of uncertainty among the trade union leaders.
In 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose198 when King-Emperor Edward VIII, George V‟s son proposed to
marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was pursuing a divorce of her
second. The marriage was opposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British
Commonwealth. Religious, legal, political, and moral objections were raised. As British monarch, Edward was the nominal
head of the Church of England, which did not then allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still
alive. For this reason, it was widely believed that Edward VIII could not marry Simpson and remain on the throne. Simpson
was perceived to be politically and socially unsuitable as a prospective queen consort because of her two failed marriages. It
was widely assumed by the Establishment that she was driven by love of money or position rather than love for the King.
Despite the opposition, Edward VIII declared that he loved Simpson and intended to marry her whether his governments
approved or not.
The widespread unwillingness to accept Simpson as the King‟s consort and Edward VIII‟s refusal to give her up led to his
abdication in December 1936, where abdicate is the most non-British thing to do. He was succeeded by his brother Albert,
who took the real name of George VI. Edward was given the title of Duke of Windsor following his abdication, and he
married Simpson the following year. They remained married until his death 35 years later.
1931: Statute of Westminster. This is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established a status of
legislative equality among the dominions governed by the British Empire. The statute became domestic law within each of
the other Commonwealth Realms199 after the transfers of legislative powers made in the particular constitution of each
Kingdom, allowing each of them to become independent. This piece of legislation made possible dominions to get
independence whenever they wanted. This was the beginning of the end of the British Empire. However, becoming
independent did not mean not to recognise the monarchy of Britain. Canada, Ireland and South Africa became independent.
The Second World War (1939 – 1945). The people of Britain watched anxiously as German control spread over Europe in
the 1930s. In 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia), and Britain and France were anxious to win Italy‟s co-operation
against Hitler, who was illegally rearming Germany, and therefore decided against taking action against Italy. Italy‟s fascist
leader, Benito Mussolini, and Hitler, realised that Britain and France lacked200 the will201 to make sure the standards of peace
accorded in 1919 were followed. In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland and Britain declares war on Germany. The
British felt again that they were fighting for the weaker nations of Europe, and for democracy. They had also heard about the
cruelty of the Nazis from Jews who had escaped to Britain.
197
Huelgas.
198
Surgió.
199
Reinos.
200
Faltaba.
201
Voluntad.

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Few people realised how strong the German army was. In May 1940 it attacked, defeating the French in a few days, and
driving the British army into the sea. At Dunkirk, a small French port, the British army was saved by thousands of private
boats which crossed the English Channel. Dunkirk was a miraculous rescue from military disaster, and Britain‟s new Prime
Minister, Winston Churchill, persuaded the nation that it was a victory of courage and determination at Britain‟s darkest hour.
Although the army had lost almost all its weapons in France, Churchill told the nation there could be no thought of surrender
or peace negotiation.
Everyone in Britain expected Germany to invade, but the British air force won an important battle against German planes in
the air over Britain. This, however, did not prevent the German air force from bombing the towns of Britain. Almost one and
a half million people in London were made homeless by German bombing during the next few months. Once again, Churchill
brilliantly managed to persuade a nation that it would still win.
The war had begun as a traditional European struggle, with Britain fighting to save the “balance of power” in Europe, and to
control the Atlantic Ocean and the sea surrounding Britain. But the war quickly became worldwide. Both sides wanted to
control the oil in the Middle East and the Suez Canal, Britain‟s route to India. In 1941 Japan, Germany‟s ally, attacked British
colonial possessions, including Malaya (Malaysia), Burma and India. As a result, Britain used soldiers from all parts of its
empire to help fight against Germany, Italy and Japan.
In 1941 Germany and Japan had made two mistakes which undoubtedly cost them the war. Germany attacked the Soviet
Union, and Japan attacked the United States, both quite unexpectedly. Whatever the advantages of surprise attack, the Axis of
Germany, Italy and Japan, had now forced onto the battlefield two of the most powerful nations in the world.
Britain could not possibly have defeated Germany without the help of its stronger allies, the Soviet Union and the United
States. By 1943 the Soviet Union was pushing the Germans out of the USSR and Britain had driven German and Italian
troops out of North Africa. Italy surrendered quickly in July 1943. In1944 Britain and the United States invaded German-
occupied France. They had already started to bomb German towns, causing greater destruction than any war had ever caused
before. In May 1945 Germany finally surrendered. In order to save further casualties202 among their own troops, Britain and
the United States then used their bombing power to defeat Japan. This time they used the new atomic bombs to destroy most
of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, two large Japanese cities. Over 110.00 people died immediately and many thousands more died
later from the after-effects.
It was a terrible end to the war, and an equally terrible beginning to the post-war world. But at the time there was great
relief203 in Britain that the war had finally ended.
The 1950s. USA, UK and USSR were the three winners of the war, although Britain was destroyed. After the end of the
Second World War, India, which was the most important British colony, became independent in 1947. In 1942 Australia and
in 1947 New Zealand decided that their lives as independent countries would be better and easier, so they got their
independence. Ireland wanted to break up every relation with Britain and in 1949 Ireland left the British Commonwealth
1952: Elizabeth II succeeds. She became queen after her father‟s, George VI, death in 1952. During the Second World War,
George VI became greatly loved for his visits to the bombed areas of Britain. He and his wife were admired for refusing to
leave Buckingham Palace even after it also had been bombed. Since 1952, when Elizabeth II became queen, the monarchy
has steadily204 increased in popularity.
At the end of the First World War, the German colonies of Africa, as well as Iran ad Palestine in the Middle East were added
to Britain‟s area of control. Its empire was now bigger than ever before, and covered a quarter of the entire land surface of the
world. However, there were already signs that the empire was coming to an end.
In India there had been a growing demand for freedom during the 1920s and 1930s. This was partly because of the continued
mistrust and misunderstanding between the British rulers and the Indian people; and also a result of a growing nationalist
movement, skilfully led by Mahatma Gandhi, which successfully disturbed British rule. By 1945 it was clear that British rule
in India could no longer continue. It was impossible and extremely expensive to try to rule 300 million people without their
co-operation. In 1947, the British finally left India, which then divided into a Hindu state and a smaller Muslim state called
Pakistan. Britain also left Palestine, where it was unable to keep its promises to both the Arab inhabitants and the new Jewish
settlers. Ceylon became independent the following year.
202
Damnificados.
203
Alivio.
204
Continuamente.

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Although in Britain there were hopes of a prosperity era, the new Elizabethan era, for most of the1950s Britain managed to
keep its other possessions, but after Suez it began to give them up. In 1951took place the Festival of Britain, an event for help
people as a consequence of the Second World War and restructured the population. However, the end of Britain‟s Empire was
a highly successful process, carried out in spite of some who opposed surrendering power, however costly this might be.
However, there was a reconstruction of population because of the mass immigration of thousand people who went to
England, especially from Asian colonies, in order to find better jobs. Britain tried to hold onto its international position
through its Commonwealth, which all the old colonies were invited to join as free and equal members. This has been
successful because it is based on the kind of friendship that allows all members to follow their own policies without
interference. At the same time, it allows discussion of international problems in a more relaxed atmosphere than is possible
through the United Nations. It was with the help of the Commonwealth that Zimbabwe finally moved peacefully from
rebellion by the whites to independence and black majority rule.
Britain also tried to keep its influence by a number of treaties with friendly governments in the Middle East and in Southeast
Asia. But most ex-colonies did not wish to be brought into such arrangements, either with Britain or any other powerful
country. During 1950s and 1960s Britain remained a European leader economically as well as politically. But Britain
suddenly began to slip205 rapidly behind its European neighbours economically.
The welfare state. In 1918 there had been a wish to return to the “good old days”. There was no such feeling during the
Second World War. At the end of the war many reforms were introduced, both by Conservative and Labour Party ministers.
Most of them agreed that there were social wrongs in British life which had to be put right.
In 1944, for the first time, the government promised free secondary education for all, and promised to provide more further
and higher education. In 1946 a labour government brought in a new National Health Service (NHS), which gave everyone
the right to free medical treatment. Two years later, in 1948, the national Assistance Act provided financial help for the old,
the unemployed, and those unable to work through sickness. Mothers and children also received help.
Progress in these areas was the result of new ideas about basic human rights. Important citizens‟ rights particularly freedom
of speech, had been firmly established in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Political rights, particularly the right to
vote, and to vote secretly, developed during the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century people began to demand basic
social rights, such as the right to work, the right to proper health care, and the right to care in old age.
The Labour government went further, taking over control of credit (the Bank of England), power (coal, iron and steel), and
transport (railways and airlines). These acts were meant to give direction to the economy. But only 20 per cent of the British
industry was actually nationalised, and these nationalised industries served private industry rather than directed it.
Nationalisation was a disappointment. Even the workers in the nationalised industries did not feel involved in making them
succeed, as the planners had hoped. Strikes in the nationalised industries were as big a problem as they were in privately
owned industries.
As a result of the changes which gave importance to people‟s happiness and wellbeing, the government became known as the
welfare state. For the next quarter century both the Conservative and Labour parties were agreed on the need to keep up the
welfare state, in particular avoiding unemployment. Britain became in fact a social democracy, in which both main parties
agreed on most of the basic values, and disagreed mainly about method. The main area of disagreement was the level of
nationalisation desirable for the British economy to operate at its best.
The swinging 60s. Like much of post-war Europe, Britain had become economically dependent on the United States. Thanks
to the US Marshall Aid programme, Britain was able to recover quickly from the war. Working people now had a better
standard of living than ever before. There was enough work for everyone, and also people had free time to enjoy themselves.
They began to go away to low-cost “holiday camps”. In 1950, car production was twice what it had been in 1939, and by
1960 cars were owned not only by richer people but by many on a lower income, which led to the build of the first
motorways.
It was also the age of youth. Young people had more money in their pockets than ever before, now that wages for those just
starting work had improved. The result was that the young began to influence fashion, particularly in clothing and music.
Nothing expressed the youthful “pop” culture of the sixties better than the Beatles, whose music quickly became
internationally known. It was not accident that the Beatles were working-class boys from Liverpool. They were real
representatives of a popular culture.
205
Deslizar.

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Young people began to express themselves in other ways. They questioned authority, and the culture in which they had been
brought up. In particular they rebelled against the sexual rules of Christian society. Some young people started living together
without getting married. In the early 1960s the number was small, perhaps only 6 per cent, but it grew to 20 per cent within
twenty years. Improvements in birth control made this more open sexual behaviour possible. Divorce became much easier,
and by 1975 one marriage in three ended in divorce, the highest rate in Europe. Older people were frightened by this
development, and called the new youth culture the “permissive society”. Perhaps the clearest symbol of the permissive age
was the mini skirt, a far shorter than had ever been worn before.
But there was a limit to what the permissive society was prepared to accept. Two cabinet ministers, on in 1963, and other in
1983, had to leave the government when their sexual relationships outside marriage became widely known. Public
disapproval could still be unexpectedly strong.
The 1970s. At the end of the eighteenth century Napoleonic France drew Britain further into European politics that it had
been, perhaps, since the Hundred Years War. In 1815Britin co-operated with the other European powers to ensure peace, and
it withdrew206 this support because it did not wish to work with the despotic powers then governing most of Europe. For the
rest of the century, European affairs took second place to the empire and imperial trade.
After the First World War it was natural that some Europeans should try to create European Union that would prevent a
repetition of war. A few British people welcomed the idea. But when France proposed such an arrangement in 1930, one
British politician spoke for the majority of the nation, claiming that people‟s hearts were not in Europe, and so that people
could never share the truly European point of view nor give up their own patriotism for the British Empire.
After the Second World War the value of European unity was a good deal clearer. In 1946 Churchill called for a “United
States of Europe”, but it was already too late to prevent the division of Europe into two blocs. In 1949 Britain joined with
other Western European countries to form the Council of Europe, to achieve greater unity between members, but it is
doubtful how far this aim has been achieved. Indeed, eight years later in 1957, Britain refused to join the six other European
countries in the creation of a European Common Market. Britain was unwilling to surrender any sovereignty or control over
its own affairs, and said it still felt responsible towards its empire.
It quickly became clear that Britain‟s attitude, particularly in view of the rapid loss of empire, was mistaken. As its financial
and difficulties increased, Britain could not afford to stay out of Europe. But it was too late: when Britain tried to join the
European Community in 1963 and again in 1967, the French president General de Gaulle refused to allow it. Britain only
became a member in 1973, after de Gaulle‟s retirement.
After becoming a member in 1973, Britain‟s attitude towards the European Community continued to be unenthusiastic.
Although trade with Europe greatly increased, most British continued to feel that they had not had any economic benefit from
Europe. This feeling was strengthened by the way in which Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher argued for a better financial
deal for Britain in the Community‟s affairs. The way in which she fought won her some admiration in Britain, but also anger
in many parts of Europe. She welcomed closer co-operation in the European community but only if this did not mean any
lessening207 of sovereignty. Many European saw this as a contradiction.
Britain also experienced new social problems, particularly after the arrival of immigrants in Britain. All through British
history there have been times when large numbers of immigrants have come to settle in the country. But until recently these
people, being Europeans, were not noticeably different from the British themselves. In the fifties, however, the first black
immigrants started to arrive from the West Indies, looking for work. By 1960 there were 250.000 “coloured” immigrants in
Britain and also the first signs of trouble with young whites. By 1985 there were about five million recent immigrants and
their children out of a total population of about fifty-six million. By this year too, almost half this black population had been
born in Britain.
As unemployment grew, the new immigrants were sometimes wrongly blamed. In fact, it was often the immigrants who were
willing to do dirty or unpopular work, in factories, hospitals and other workplaces. The relationship between black
immigrants and the white population of Britain was not easy. Black people found it harder to obtain employment, and were
often only able to live in the worst housing. The government passed laws to prevent unequal treatment of black people, but
also to control the number of immigrants coming to Britain. Unemployment increased rapidly at the end of the 1970s. In
many towns, 15 per cent or more of the working population was out of work. Industrial problems also increased the
differences between the “comfortable” south and the poorer north.
206
Retiró.
207
Disminución.

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The 1980s: Thatcher’s decade. Few of the problems of the 1980s were entirely new. However, many people blamed them
on the new Conservative government, and in particular, Britain‟s first Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who had been
elected in 1979 because she promised a new beginning for Britain. As a result, the old Conservative-Labour agreement on the
guiding principles of the welfare state had already broken down. In the Conservative Party there had been a strong move to
the right, and in the Labour Party there had been a similarly strong movement to the left. Both moved further away from the
“centre” of British politics than they had done in living memory.
This basic change in British politics caused a major crisis for the Labour Party, and the Conservative became more popular.
Margaret Thatcher had come to power calling on the nation for hard work, patriotism and self-help. She was not, however, a
typical Conservative
In 1982 Argentina demanded the Falklands208 as its territory, and what Britain wanted to do was to show that its empire was
still there, so the war began. By the firm leadership during the Falklands War, Thatcher captured the imagination of the
nation, and was confidently able to call to call an election in 1983. As expected, Thatcher was returned to power with the
greatest Conservative victory for forty years.
Thatcher had promised to stop Britain‟s decline, but by 1983 she had not succeeded. Industrial production since 1979 had
fallen by 10 per cent, and manufacturing production by 17 per cent. By 1983, for the first time since the industrial revolution,
Britain had become a net importer of manufactured goods. However, Thatcher could claim she had begun to return
nationalised industries to the private sector, that she had gone even further than she had promised. By 1987
telecommunications, gas, British Airways, British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders had all been put into private
ownership.
By the late 1980s most British people felt that the future was full of uncertainty. These doubts resulted from disappointment
with lost economic and political power. In 1987, Thatcher won again the elections, which brought some comfort to some
people. Many others looked back to the “Swinging Sixties” as the best ten years Britain had had that century. However,
people were divided concerning the nation‟s future possibilities. Some, those who had voted for Thatcher, were optimistic.
Others were unhappy with the direction the nation was taking; they were worried by the weakening of the welfare state,
particularly in the educational and health services.
The government said much about maintaining “traditional values”, the Victorian values, particularly law and order. There
was nothing new in this. People have always looked at history in the way that suited their system of beliefs. In 1988 Britain
celebrated two major anniversaries, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and the Glorious Revolution in 1688. One was
about Britain‟s successful military and foreign policy, the other about its successful constitutional development.
When looking at Britain today, it is important to remember the great benefits of the past. No other country has so long a
history of political order, going back almost without interruption to the Norman Conquest.
The 1990s. There was wartime, but not in properly in Britain. The Gulf War in 1990 was a warlike 209 conflict released by a
34-nation and led by the United States against the Republic of Iraq in response to the Iraqi invention and annexation of the
State of Kuwait. At the time in England, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Sir Anthony
Meyer, in 1989 leadership election. Thatcher resulted as winner, and her supporters in the Party viewed the result as a
success. On 1 November 1990, Geoffrey Howe, the last remaining member of Thatcher‟s original 1979 cabinet, resigned
from his position as Deputy210 Prime Minister over her refusal to agree to a timetable for Britain to join the European
Exchange Rate Mechanism. His resignation was fatal to Thatcher‟s premiership. The next day, Michael Heseltine mounted a
challenge for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Thatcher initially stated that she intended to “fight on and fight to
win”, but consultation with her cabinet persuaded her to withdraw. After visiting the Queen, calling other world leaders, and
making one final Commons speech, she left Downing Street in tears. She reportedly regarded het ousting as a betrayal211.
Thatcher was replaced as Prime Minister and party leader by her Chancellor212 John Major, who prevailed over Heseltine.
Major had a Conservative support in the 17 months leading up to the 1992 general election, and led the Conservatives to their
fourth successive victory that year. The Conservatives were in office until 1997, and Britain with the United States as its best
ally.
208
Islas Malvinas.
209
Bélico.
210
Vice.
211
Traición, engaño.
212
Canciller.

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In 1997 Hong Kong, Britain‟s last colony, was given back to China. In the same year, the United Kingdom held a general
election. Under the leadership of Tony Blair the Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition and won the general election
with a landslide213 victory. Later that year, in August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, also known as Lady Di, died as a result
of injuries214 sustained in a car crash in Paris, France.
The Labour decade: Cool Britannia. After Princess of Wales‟s death, Tony Blair became increasingly popular. After her
unexpected death, Queen Elizabeth II was disconcerted, and her initial reaction was to hide in her palace and disappear from
the public eye; because of this attitude, she was very criticised by the media and the public. To Tony Blair, this moment
served him to make a link between the people and the royal family.
On the other hand, the diversity and the devolution got increased at the time. The pop culture of the 90s influenced by the
Beatles and other British groups of the 60s made British extremely popular all around the world.
The Labour Party continued the conservative economic and international policy, with ambivalence towards the EU and its
strong alliance with the United States. In the second Gulf War in 2003, Spain, Poland, Australia, the United States and Britain
invaded Iraq in order to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and deposed the government of Saddam Hussein.
At the beginning of 1998, the prospects for peace in Northern Ireland were poor. To the untrained215 eye, plenty of positives
had begun to emerge: multi-party216 talks had been established in 1996; Irish Republican Army (IRA) had restored their
ceasefire in 1997; and by September of that year, the political representatives of the republican and the loyalist paramilitaries
were engaged in the talks in Stormont, Belfast.
On the Good Friday217 of 1998 was signed in Belfast the Good Friday Agreement by both the Irish and British governments
and accepted by most of the political parties in Northern Ireland, to end up The Trouble in Northern Ireland between unionists
of Northern Ireland (Protestants), and Irish republicans (Catholics). These last wanted the integration of the nation in the
Republic of Ireland.
The Belfast Agreement, or Good Friday Agreement, contained proposals for a Northern Ireland Assembly with a power-
sharing executive, new cross-border institutions with the Republic of Ireland and a body linking devolved assemblies across
the UK with Westminster and Dublin. In May 2007, the Assembly‟s powers reverted to the Northern Ireland Office and full
power was restored to the devolved218 institutions
In 2007, too, Tony Blair gets succeeded by Gordon Brown, member of Labour Party until 2010, when the Conservative Party
came back to power with David Cameron.
The 2010s: from Conservative Britain to Brexitania. The 2010 general election led to David Cameron, Michael Howard‟s
successor since 2005 as leader of the Conservative Party, becoming Prime Minister as head of a coalition government with
the Liberal Democrats until 2015. His premiership was marked by the ongoing effects of the late-2000s financial crisis; these
involved a large deficit in government finances that his government sought 219 to reduce through austerity measures. His
administration introduced large-scale changes to welfare, immigration policy, education and healthcare. It privatised the
Royal Mail and some other state assets, and legalised same-sex marriage. The Conservative Party was back in power.
In Scotland, a referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom took place in September 2014. The
referendum question, which voters answered “Yes” or “No”, was “Should Scotland be an independent country?” The “No”
side won, with 55% voting against independence and 44% voting in favour. Even though David Cameron promised to defend
British unity, he expressed that he was decided to allow the referendum in Scotland, claiming that if there were an
independent Scotland, he would not step down as Prime Minister.
On May 2015, Cameron was re-elected UK Prime Minister with a majority in the Commons. As promised in the election
manifesto, Cameron set a date for a referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union, and
announced that he would be campaigning for Britain to remain within a “reformed EU”. The terms of the UK‟s membership
were re-negotiated, with agreement reached in February 2016.
213
Abrumadora.
214
Lesiones.
215
Inexperto.
216
Pluripartidistas.
217
Viernes Santo.
218
Descentralizadas.
219
Buscó.

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The referendum came to be known as

Brexit. It was held in 23 June 2016, and the
British electorate voted by 52% to 48% in
favour of leaving the European Union. On
24 June, a few hours after the results
became known, Cameron announced that
he would resign the office of Prime
Minister before October 2016.
Even though the result was Yes to leave the

European Union, in Scotland, Northern
Ireland and even London, most of people
voted No to leave. After the results, Nicola
Sturgeon, Scotland‟s First Minister,
announced a second Scottish referendum,
blaming the UK Government‟s lack220 of
compromise over Brexit.
On 30 June 2016, Theresa May announced her candidacy for the leadership of the Conservative Party to replace David
Cameron after he resigned. On 13 July 2016, two days after becoming leader of the Conservative Party, May was appointed
Prime Minister by Queen Elizabeth II, becoming only the second female British Prime Minister after Margaret Thatcher.
In January 2017 Theresa May announced that UK‟s government was prepared to accept a clean break with the EU in its
negotiations for the UK‟s departure. She claimed that the government was prepared to abandon the single market, customs
union and the European Court of Justice in order to bring an end to freedom of movement.
According to the Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which allows the states members to left the European Union, Theresa
May announced that Brexit will end the conversations between the UK and the EU before 29 March 2019. The UK will leave
the EU.
Tema 5. A brief history of Ireland: standing up against British hegemony.
Early Irish history. Historians estimate that Ireland was first settled by humans at a relatively late stage in European terms,
about 10.000 years ago. Around 4.000 BC it is estimated that the first famers arrived in Ireland, coming from England.
Farming by several waves of immigrants marked the arrival of the new Stone Age. Around 500 BC, Iron Age warriors known
as the Celts arrived in Ireland from mainland Europe. The Celts had a huge influence on Ireland. Many famous Irish myths
stem from the stories about Celtic warriors. The current first official language of the Republic of Ireland, Irish (or Gaeilge)
stems from Celtic language. In that time, Ireland was divided into over 100
small units, like counties, called tuaths.
Christian religion appeared in Ireland years after, although the Romans did not
take there. Following the arrival of Saint Patrick and other Christian
missionaries in the early to mid-fifth century, Christianity took over the
indigenous pagan religion by the year 600 AD. Irish Christian scholars excelled
in the study of Latin, Greek and Christian theology in monasteries throughout
Ireland. The arts of manuscript illumination, metalworking and sculpture
flourished and produced such treasures as the Books of Kells, ornate jewellery,
and the many carved stone crosses that can still be seen across the country. The
tuaths were ruled by a Lord because of the English invasion.
At the end of the 8th century and during the 9th and 10th centuries, Vikings from
Scandinavia began to invade and gradually settle into a mix with Irish society.
In 950 AD, for the very first time in history, all the tuaths of Ireland came
united against the Vikings by Uí Neill (High) Kings, defeating Viking influence
at Clontarf in 1014.
The historical provinces of Ireland are very important for the people today: Ulster, Leinster, Connacht and Munster.
220
Falta.

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The 12th century, properly 1169, saw the arrival of the Normans, who built walled towns, castles and churches, marking the
beginning of more than 800 years of direct English rule. They also increased agriculture and commerce in Ireland. By that
time, Ireland was divided politically into petty kingdoms; power was exercised by the heads of a few regional dynasties vying
against each other for the supremacy over the island. King Diarmait Mac Murchada of Leinster was forcibly exiled by the
new King Rory O‟Connor of the Western Kingdom of Connacht, who assassinated the Uí Neill King. Diarmait were seeking
for refuge and help in England and recruited Norman knights to regain his Kingdom. The English King who helped Diarmait
was Henry II. Several countries were restored to the control of Diarmait, who named his son-in-law, the Norman Richard de
Clare, known as Strongbow221, heir to his kingdom. This troubled king Henry II, who feared the establishment of a rival
Norman state in Ireland.
Due to this, Henry II invaded Ireland in 1171. In 1177, Prince John Lackland was made Lord of Ireland by his father, Henry
II. Since then, most of Ireland was governed by Anglo-Norman lords. By 1261the weakening of the Normans had become
manifest when Fineen MacCarthy defeated a Norman army at the Battle of Callan. The war continued between the different
lords for about 100 years, causing much destruction, especially around Dublin. In this chaotic situation, local Irish lords won
back large amounts of land that they had lost since the conquest and held them after the war was over. When John Lackland
unexpectedly succeeded his brother as King John of England, the “Lordship of Ireland” fell directly under the English Crown.
The Black Death arrived in Ireland in 1348. Because most of the English and Norman inhabitants of Ireland lived in towns
and villages, the plague hit them far harder than it did in the native Irish, who lived in more dispersal rural settlements. After
it had passed, Gaelic Irish language and customs came to dominate the country again. The English-controlled territory
shrank222 to a fortified area around Dublin (the Pale), and had little real authority outside.
By the end of the 15th century, central English authority in Ireland had almost disappeared. England‟s attentions were divided
by the Wars of the Roses. The Lordship of Ireland lay in the hands of the powerful Fitzgerald Earl of Kildare, who dominated
the country by means of military force and alliances with Irish lords and clans.
Ireland: an English colony. From 1536, Henry VIII decided to conquer Ireland and bring it under crown control. The
Fitzgerald dynasty of Kildare, who had become the effective rulers of Ireland in the 15 th century, had become unreliable allies
of the Tudor monarchs. Most Irish Lords recognised Henry VIII as King of Ireland in exchange for earldoms, and in 1541, he
upgraded Ireland from a Lordship to a full Kingdom. However, to extend the control of the English Kingdom of Ireland over
all of its claimed territory took nearly a century.
When Henry VIII became King of Ireland, he forced Ireland to break with the Catholic Church and confiscated the land that
the Church had. The Irish tried to resist because, since Saint Patrick, Catholic religion had constituted part of the national
identity of the Irish. The Irish Catholic population was persecuted and the Protestant British oppressors took complete
control. People were massacred.
The Tudor period in Ireland. Henry VIII‟s reformation did not succeed and most Irish remained Catholics, even today.
When Eduard VI succeeded his father, his Protestant reforms did not take hold either. A policy of “plantations” began: land
was confiscated from Catholic Irish landowners and given to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland, principally in the
provinces of Munster and Ulster. During over a century and a half, Catholic Ireland was conquered, and religion became a
source of division.
Mary I become Queen and all Kingdom went back to Catholicism. Even though, the policy of plantations kept going in order
to put all Ireland under British control. To this end, two forms of plantation were adopted. In the first one, small colonies of
English would provide model farming communities that the Irish could emulate223. The second one se the trend for future
English policy in Ireland provided for the plantation of the English settlers on lands confiscated following the suppression of
rebellions. The first such scheme was the Plantation of King‟s and Queen Counties (Offaly and Laois, named Phillipstown
and Maryborough, in West of Dublin).
Elizabeth I became Queen, setting Protestantism forever. There were many Irish rebellions, and Munster plantation was
destroyed in 1598. The re-conquest was completed during her reign and his successor‟s, James I, after several brutal conflicts.
Finally, the English authorities in Dublin established real control over Ireland for the first time, bringing a centralised
government. However, the English were not successful converting the Catholic Irish to the Protestant religion, and the brutal
methods using by crown authority to bring the country under the English control, heightened resentment on English rule.
221
Arco de flechas.
222
Contrajo.
223
Emular, imitar.

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The 17th century. It was a bloody century in Ireland, which started with an Ulster (Tyrone‟s) rebellion, fought between the
forces of the Gaelic Irish chieftains Hugh O‟Neill, Hugh Roe and their allies, against English rule in Ireland. The war took
place in all parts of Ireland, but mainly in Ulster. It was the largest conflict fought by England in the Elizabethan era, which
ended in defeat for the Irish chieftains. After the war, later known as the Nine Years War (1594 – 1603), the Treaty of
Mellifont was signed to pacify the area; Elizabeth I had died a week before.
James I was Scottish and he started a plantation in Ulster in 1609, occupied by English and Scottish people. In 1641, Irish
people started a rebellion against the domination of Protestants settlers, and thousands of planters were murdered. The
Catholic gentry briefly ruled the country as Confederate Ireland (1624 – 1649), until Oliver Cromwell re-conquered Ireland in
1649 on behalf224 of the English Commonwealth. There was a brutal phase of massacre and, by its close, up to a third of
Ireland‟s pre-war population was dead or in exile. He continued with the plantations in Munster and Leinster. By the time he
died, there was a balance between landowners; the Catholic population in Ireland was roughly the same in number as the
Protestant population.
Ireland became the main battleground during the Glorious Revolution, when the Catholic James II left London and the
English Parliament replaced him with William of Orange. The wealthier Irish Catholics backed James to try to reverse the
penal laws and land confiscations, but Protestants supported Mary II and William III. James II and William III fought for
Ireland, but James‟ outnumbered forces were defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
In 1691, the war between Jacobites and the supporters of William III ended with the treaty of Limerick, where William III
offered a pardon to Jacobite soldiers and Catholics were allowed to practise their religion, but they were forced to forfeit 225
their land.
The 18th century. During this century, many laws were passed that discriminated against Catholics. These new laws forbade
Catholics to vote, own a gun, hold public office, receiving education (except medicals), own a horse over 5£ and own lands.
By 1778, only a 5% of the land was owned by Catholics. By the end of the century the Industrial Revolution hit Irish cities.
In1782 a Parliamentary faction led by Henry Grattan (a Protestant) successfully agitated for a more favourable trading
relationship with England and for greater independence for the Parliament of Ireland, looking for enfranchising Irish
Catholics. In 1789 the French Revolution influenced The United Irish Men. By 1798 a very inspirational movement of Irish
nationalism manifested itself led by Wolfe Tone, wanted to reduce English power in Ireland.
The 19th century: the century of the famine226. The British again punished the Irish for their rebellions. They closed down
the parliament in Dublin and Ireland was formally integrated into Britain by the Act of Union in 1801: the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland. Catholics could not hold Parliamentary office until 1829, when Daniel O‟Connell, known in
Ireland as „the Liberator‟, began an ultimately successful Irish campaign to achieve emancipation, and to be seated in the
Parliament. He was central in getting the Act of Emancipation, getting the total ban 227 on voting by Catholics lifted228, and so
that Irishmen could also became in Members of the parliament in London.
Poverty was widespread. For many Irish, potatoes were the most important food. In 1845 a disaster called „the potato
blight229‟ struck. This is the most remembered historical fact for Irish people. They had not anything to eat, and they died.
Due to the starvation and the mass immigration, Irish population halved230, and English rulers did little to help the situation.
There were created soup kitchens231, providing soups because they were nutritive and cheap.
Because of the anti-British feeling, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB, fenians) was created in 1858. They were Irish
nationalist who wanted to make Ireland independent with only Catholic people. By 1867, the rebellions were uprising.
However, all of them were lost. There was little effective challenge to Britain‟s control of Ireland until the efforts of Charles
Stewart Parnell, who became the leader of the Irish Home Rule Party in 1879, which became the Irish Parliamentary Party in
1882. They wanted a land reform, to be a dominion.
By the end of the century, there were more politic fragments:
224
Favor.
225
Perder el derecho a.
226
Hambruna.
227
Prohibición.
228
Levantada.
229
Plaga.
230
Se redujo a la mitad.
231
Comedores sociales.

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 Irish Unionists: they wanted to be part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
 Home Rulers: they wanted Ireland to become a dominion.
 Irish Nationalists: they wanted independence, but not an independent republic.
 Irish Republicans: they wanted to become a completely independent republican country.
The 20th century: partition. By the end of the 19th century, a movement called Gaelic revival was born in England of people
who wanted to spread the proud of being Irish. This different political movement wanted to make Gaelic the official language
of Ireland once again, but the Protestant opposition to the demands were strong. At that moment, Disraeli was the leader of
the Conservative Party in London. The Irish Prime Minister, William Gladstone, made two unsuccessful attempts to pass
Home Rule in Ireland in 1886 and 1893.
In 1905, Arthur Griffith founded a political party called Sinn Féin, with a focus for various forms of Irish nationalism,
especially Irish republicanism. They had pretty much the same objectives that the Irish Republican Brotherhood. This
organisation would become the arm of the Irish Republican Army. Home rule became certain when in 1910, the Irish
parliamentary Party under John Redmond held the balance of power in Commons and the third Home Rue Bill was
introduced in 1912. In 1914, just as the First World War broke up, the UK Parliament passed the Third Home Rule Act to
establish self-government for Ireland, but was suspended for the duration of the war.
There was an uprising on Easter day in 1916. Two groups of armed rebels from the Irish Republican Brotherhood seized
locations in Dublin, declaring an Irish Republic independent from Britain. They failed to spread their message, were arrested
and executed. However, two of the key characters avoided execution and in 1918. Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins then
joined Sinn Féin Party, which won a majority of the Ireland seats at the House of Commons gathered232 in Dublin to form an
Irish Republic Parliament. Sinn Féin Party‟s popularity was clearly growing. In 1919, de Valera led Sinn Féin to win
elections, and the Members of the Parliament refused to go to London.
What followed next was the War of Independence and partition. The Irish Republican Army was created by Michael Collins,
in order to wag233 a guerrilla war against British forces from 1919 to 1921, when a treaty was signed by the British and Irish
authorities. While a clear grade of independence was finally granted to Ireland, the contents of the treaty were to split Irish
public and political opinion. One of the sources of division was that Ireland was to be divided into Northern Ireland and the
Irish Free State, established in 1922. With the partition of Ireland this year, 92% of the population was Catholic. Such was the
division of opinion in Ireland that a Civil War followed from 1922 to 1923 between pro and anti treaty forces. De Valera did
not accept the treaty, but Collins did, so they were at opposite sides. Eventually, Collins dies as a consequence of a shoot to
his head and the war comes to an end with the pro-treaty faction wining. There was an Irish Free Sate and Northern Ireland.
In 1931, the Statute of Westminster was passed by the Parliament of London, making legally possible for all the dominions to
become independent if they wanted, any time they wanted. The Irish Free State finally becomes independent in 1931,
accepting the British monarchy as their monarchy. In 1932, de Valera left Sinn Féin and created the Fianna Fail, another
political party in Ireland. In 9137, the Irish Constitution re-established the state as Ireland, remaining neutral through the
Second World War. In 1949, the state was formally declared a Republic and it left the British Commonwealth.
Towards pacification and prosperity? Under the same Government of Ireland Act of 1920 that created the Irish Free State,
the Parliament of Northern Ireland was created. The Parliament consisted of a majority of Protestants, but this came to an end
in the late 1960s. The Irish Republican Army reappeared, claiming for the whole island of Ireland to become independent.
There were Catholics according to „the troubles‟. During anti-British protests, 13 unarmed marched were killed by British
troops on Ulster town, and in 1972 the Parliament is dissolved and direct rule from London is imposed, with a secretary of
State for Northern Ireland in the British Cabinet.
In 1973, the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community (now European Union). In 1998, Great Britain,
the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland signed a peace deal that brought an end to the troubles, according stability in
Northern Ireland. In 2007, the Irish Republican Army agrees to hand down arms, and devolved government was returned to
Northern Ireland with a Sinn Féin and Democratic unionist Party coalition government, until 2017.
Becoming a member of the European Union did much to improve Irish economy. The Irish economy boomed in the 1990s so
much that Ireland was nicknamed “The Celtic Tiger”. Although, there was a severe economical crisis between 2008 – 2014
due to emigration and unemployment, Ireland has seen strong economic growth, known as the “Celtic Phenix”.
232
Reunido.
233
Librar.

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Cultural Insights Into the British Word part 2 EXTREMELY

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Tema 1. An introduction to Britain: Geographical facts and figures.

The British nations: English or British?

 UK Vs. Republic of Ireland (Eire).

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Other British Symbols.

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Physical features and climate.

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Attitudes to the environment.

 Rise of Green Movement in the 1980‟s: wider awareness of environmental issues.

Tema 2. British history in a nutshell: from pre-history to the Middle Ages.

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The British Empire owned a quarter part of the Earth.

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The referendum came to be known as

Even though the result was Yes to leave the

Tema 5. A brief history of Ireland: standing up against British hegemony.

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By the end of the century, there were more politic fragments:

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