ptashkin_countrystudy

levied without parliamentary approval. Parliamentary procedures changed, giving the members of the parliament more control over government. In both countries, the war, fed by propaganda, led to the growth of nationalism.

A series of factional struggles led to the deposition of King Richard II in 1399. When the Hundred Years’ War ended, the nobility continued fighting each other in the Wars of the Roses (1455–1485), choosing sides as Lancastrians or Yorkists.

In the 15th c. the kings of the Lancaster family (Henry IV, 1399–1413; Henry V, 1413–1422; Henry VI, 1422–1461) were followed by the kings of the York family (Edward IV, 1461–1483; Edward V, 1483; Richard III, 1483–1485).

The Wars of the Roses began when the barons of the North supported the Lancaster dynasty who had a red rose in their crest. The barons of the South supported the Yorks whose crest was decorated by a white rose. The bloody struggle for the crown and rule practically lasted for about 30 years with some breaks. It was a merciless annihilation of the old aristocracy with rights and claims to become rulers.

Finally, the two dynasties had been destroyed, and a distant relative of the Lancaster family – Henry Tudor married Elisabeth of York (the two roses united) and was crowned Henry VII (1485–1509).

But the civil war of the 15th c. could not stop the progress of productive forces. The 15th c. saw the development of woolen textile manufacture and steel industry, the growth of the navy and shipbuilding.

William Caxton brought a printing press and started book printing in

England (1477).

For all the conflicts, the forces of progress were laying foundations for destroying feudalism, for developing capitalism and formation of the English national economy.

Historians still debate the true extent of the conflict’s impact on medieval English life, and some revisionists, such as the Oxford historian K.B. McFarlane, suggest that the conflicts during this period have been radically overstated, and that there were, in fact, no Wars of the Roses at all.

The wars are thought to have continued the changes in feudal English society caused by the effects of the Black Death, including a weakening of the feudal power of the nobles and a corresponding strengthening of the merchant classes, and the growth of a strong, centralised monarchy under the Tudors. It heralded the end of the medieval period in England and the movement towards the Renaissance.

On the other hand, it has also been suggested that the traumatic impact of the wars was exaggerated by Henry VII to magnify his achievement in quelling

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them and bringing peace. Certainly, the effect of the wars on the merchant and labouring classes was far less than in the long drawn-out wars of siege and pillage in France and elsewhere in Europe, which were carried out by mercenaries who profited from the prolonging of the war. Although there were some lengthy sieges, such as at Harlech Castle and Bamburgh Castle, these were in comparatively remote and sparsely inhabited regions. In the populated areas, both factions had much to lose by the ruin of the country and sought quick resolution of the conflict by pitched battle.

Few noble houses were actually exterminated during the wars. For example, in the period from 1425 to 1449, before the outbreak of the war, there were as many extinctions of noble lines (25) as occurred during the period of fighting (24) from 1450 to 1474. However, the most openly ambitious nobles died, and by the later period of the wars, fewer nobles were prepared to risk their lives and titles in an uncertain struggle.

§13. The Tudor Age. Henry VII

The end of the Wars of the Roses was the event that symbolized the end of the Middle Ages in Britain. The year of 1485 is traditionally considered the beginning of the Tudor Age (Henry VII, 1485–1509; Henry VIII, 1509–1547; Edward VI, 1547–1553; Jane Grey, 1553; Mary I, 1553–1558; Elizabeth I, 1558–1603).

The 16th c. was the age of growing absolutism of monarchy and centralization of the state. These phenomena caused the development of new capitalist relations in the country.

The English type of absolute monarchy was shaped by Henry VII, who was opposed to the power of the old English aristocracy. He ordered that the castles should be destroyed and the feudal baronial armies should be disbanded. He was very rich with the confiscated wealth of his defeated rivals. He supported merchants and small landowners who had all suffered from the civil war. These two groups were strong enough to be useful allies of the Tudor kings and queens. Their support enabled the Tudors to become despotic rules, while at first they played a progressive historic role.

§14. Henry VIII and his reforms

Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon (Spain). By 1526 Henry became convinced that he was unable to produce a legitimate son to inherit his throne. Soon, Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn and decided to annul his marriage

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to Catherine in order to marry Anne. Pope Clement VII refused his consent to the divorce. Thomas Cranmer, named archbishop in 1533, dissolved Henry’s marriage. Henry married Anne Boleyn in 1533.

Henry used Parliament to threaten the pope and eventually to legislate the break with Rome. The Act of 1532 prevented payments of money to the pope. The Act of 1533 forbade appeals to be taken to Rome, which stopped Catherine from appealing her divorce to the pope, as the head of the English church. These acts enabled Henry to dissolve the monasteries and to seize their land.

Thomas Moore, an English statesman and writer, worked for King Henry VIII but refused to recognize him as head of the Church of England. For this he was put in prison and finally was executed (1536).

Besides his six marriages, Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. Henry’s struggles with Rome led to the separation of the Church of England from papal authority, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and establishing himself as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Yet he remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings, even after his excommunication from the Catholic Church. Henry oversaw the legal union of England and Wales with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542.

Under Henry’s son, Edward VI, who ascended to the throne at age 10, the English church adopted Calvinism, a radical protestant teaching. Clergy were allowed to marry, and images were removed from churches.

In February 1553, at age 15, Edward fell ill. When his sickness was discovered to be terminal, he and his Council drew up a “Devise for the Succession”, attempting to prevent the country being returned to Catholicism. Edward named his cousin Lady Jane Grey as his heir and excluded his half sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. However, this was disputed following Edward’s death and Jane was queen for only nine days before Edward’s half-sister, Mary, was proclaimed Queen. She reversed Edward’s Protestant reforms, which nonetheless became the basis of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559.

§15. Lady Jane Grey and Mary I (r. 1553-1558)

Lady Jane Grey is known as the Nine Days’ Queen (1536/1537–1554) was an English noblewoman and de facto monarch of England from 10 July until 19 July 1553. The great-granddaughter of Henry VII through his younger daughter Mary, Jane was a first cousin once removed of Edward VI. During her short reign, Jane resided in the Tower of London. She became a prisoner

there when the Privy Council decided to change sides and proclaim Mary as Queen on 19 July 1553. She was convicted of high treason in November 1553, though her life was initially spared. Wyatt’s rebellion in January and February 1554 against Queen Mary’s plans of a Spanish match led to her execution at the age of 16 or 17, and that of her husband.

The daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Mary ascended the throne in 1553, with the help of her Catholic supporters. She sought to make England Catholic. She ordered many Protestants to be executed, earning the name “Bloody Mary” from opponents. To escape persecution many English went into exile on the Continent in Germany, Switzerland, and elsewhere, where they learned more radical Protestant ideas.

Many Tudor married Philip II, the widowed king of Spain, who had a reputation of being a fanatical Catholic. She was sure that a strong hand would be needed to reestablish Catholicism. She organized her foreign policy around Spanish interests. The Parliament agreed that Philip might assist Mary in the government of the kingdom. If Mary had a child, it should succeed to her throne. If she died childless, neither Philip nor his heirs would have any claim. They had no children.

As the fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty, Mary is remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after the short-lived Protestant reign of her half-brother. During her five-year reign, she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian Persecutions. Her reestablishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed after her death in 1558 by her younger half-sister and successor, Elizabeth I.

§16. Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603)

Under Elizabeth, who was Henry VIII’s daughter and half-sister to Edward and Mary, the church in England adopted Protestant beliefs again. Catholicism remained, especially among the gentry, but could not be practiced openly. Some reformers wanted to purify (hence “Puritans”) the church of its remaining Catholic features.

The Church of England came to be called Anglican. Governed by bishops and practicing Catholic rituals, nevertheless it maintained a Calvinist doctrine. Though suppressed by Elizabeth’s government, Puritans were not condemned to death.

Catholics participated in several rebellions and plots. Mary, Queen of Scots, had fled to England for her kingdom in 1568, after alienating the nobles

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there. In Catholic eyes, she was the legitimate queen of England. Several plots to put Mary on the throne led to her execution in 1587.

In 1588, King Philip II sent the Armada, a fleet of more than 125 ships, to convey troops from the Netherlands to England as part of a plan to make England Catholic. The Armada was defeated by a combination of superior English naval tactics and a wind which made it impossible for the Spanish to accomplish their plan.

In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and halfsiblings had been. In religion she was relatively tolerant, avoiding systematic persecution. After 1570, when the pope declared her illegitimate and released her subjects from obedience to her, several conspiracies threatened her life. All plots were defeated, however, with the help of her ministers’ secret service. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, moving between the major powers of France and Spain. She only half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France and Ireland. In the mid-1580s, war with Spain could no longer be avoided, and when Spain finally decided to attempt to conquer England in 1588, the failure of the Spanish Armada associated her with one of the greatest victories in English history.

§17. The England of the second half of the 16th c

In the 16th century Spain and Portugal were the great colonial powers. However, by the reign of Elizabeth I English merchants were challenging the

Spanish and Portuguese monopoly.

The English bourgeoisie having accumulated power and wealth at home was interested in colonial expansion. In these ventures the Tudor monarchs and especially Queen Elizabeth assisted the merchants and pirates by granting them charters and patents to trade and to found overseas settlements.

Between 1577 and 1580 Francis Drake, under orders from Queen Elizabeth sailed round the globe on his famous ship, the Golden Hind. When Drake arrived at home in 1580 he returned a profit of 1,500,000 pounds on an investment of 5,000. The queen alone received 25,000 pounds. Queen Elizabeth actively supported slave-traders who took slaves from the west African coast and sold them to Spanish colonists in the West Indies. The slave trade brought tremendous profits to the English merchants and the Crown.

With Elizabeth’s support the English pirates also tried to seize a share of Spain’s colonial trade. Drake, Hawkins and the other seadogs now ranged across the Atlantic, from the coast of north Africa to the mainland of Spanish

America. They attacked coastal forts, islands, and fleets of Spanish treasureships. They carried back to English ports cargoes worth thousands of pounds.

§18. The Culture of Tudor England (I)

In England one may distinguish 3 periods within the Renaissance: 1) the first period of the end of the 15th and the first half of the 16th c., 2) the second period coinciding with the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603) and the activities of William Shakespeare (1564–1616), and 3) the third period after Shakespeare’s death, which ended with the beginning of the Puritan revolution.

The first period. The reign of Henry VIII was a period of great flourishing of music, art and architecture. King Henry VIII encouraged architects and painters to come from Italy and other European countries. Many of them enriched English culture and today are considered to be the founders of the English school of painting.

Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey are often mentioned together, but there many differences in their work. Both wrote sonnets, which they learned to do from the Italians; but it was Wyatt who first brought the sonnet to England. Surrey’s work is also important because he wrote the first blank verse in English.

Thomas More (1478–1535), an English lawyer, politician, and writer, wrote Utopia (a Greek word for “nowhere”). The book describes a perfect society, located on an imaginary island, in which war, poverty, religious intolerance, and other problems of the early 16th century do not exist.

§19. The Culture of Tudor England (II)

The second period. The reign of Queen Elizabeth saw the development of the English language to the height of its power as an instrument of prose, drama, poetry.

In poetry, Elizabethan literature is especially rich in lyric forms (Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney and others). The writing of poetry was part of the education of a gentleman, and the books of sonnets and lyrics that appeared contained works of different poets.

The chief literary glory of the Elizabethan age was its drama.

The University Wits were, as their group-name proclaims, graduates of Oxford or Cambridge (Thomas Kyd, George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, Christopher Marlowe and others). Men with learning and talent but no

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money, they could not find a career in the Church, like the clerks of the Middle Ages. The monasteries had been dissolved by King Henry VIII, leaving the poor scholars who did not wish to take full clerical orders no alternative but to seek secular employment. And what secular employment was available in Elizabethan times? Teaching was not an attractive profession. All that suggested itself was a kind of journalism – pamphleteering, novel-writing, and writing plays for the theatres. There were many theatres in London. Being men of learning, they produced something better than the old popular plays. But the Golden Age of English Drama is, first of all, connected with the name of William Shakespeare (1564–1616). He mixed many ideas characteristic of his time to produce history plays, tragedies, comedies, and sonnets.

Travelling musicians were in great demand at Court, in churches, at country houses, and at local festivals. Important composers included William Byrd (1543–1623), John Dowland (1563–1626) Thomas Campion (1567– 1620), and Robert Johnson (1583–1634). The composers were commissioned by church and Court, and deployed two main styles, madrigal and ayre. The popular culture showed a strong interest in folk songs and ballads (folk songs that tell a story). It became the fashion in the late 19th century to collect and sing the old songs.

It has often been said that the Renaissance came late to England, in contrast to Italy and the other states of continental Europe; the fine arts in England during the Tudor and Stuart eras were dominated by foreign and imported talent—from Hans Holbein the Younger under Henry VIII to

Anthony van Dyck under Charles I. Yet within this general trend, a native school of painting was developing. In Elizabeth’s reign, Nicholas Hilliard, the Queen’s “limner and goldsmith,” is the most widely recognized figure in this native development; but George Gower has begun to attract greater notice and appreciation as knowledge of him and his art and career has improved.

The third period. There were many other playwrights who were part of the Golden Age of English Drama, too. Many of their plays are still successfully performed (Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, etc.)

Their plays are complex, passionate and even violent, as they go deeply into problems of human nature.

In the 1620s, the taste for violence, corruption and complex sexual feelings began to cause a reaction from extreme Protestants, the Puritans. The Golden Age of Elizabeth was long past, and new social, religious and political problems were facing the nation. The Puritans saw the theatre as a symbol of the vices of the past.

The criticism of the theatre and its morals eventually led to the closure of the theatres by the Puritans in 1642.

As the ideas of the Elizabethan age passed slowly away, the immense lyrical tide (in poetry) began gradually to lose its force. The poets of the Jacobean age were more interested in the mind than in heart. They wrote verse which was generally less beautiful and less musical; they mixed feelings with reason, and the mixture seems rather strange.

§20. The Stuarts: James I, Charles I

On the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 James VI Stuart, King of Scots, became James I (1603–1625) of England. He was the representative of the Tudor dynasty, being the greatgrandson of Margaret, the sister of Henry VIII.

The Stuart kings were less successful than the Tudor monarchs.

In person James I was not a figure of great majesty; he was, in fact, small and awkward. Possessed of a high opinion of his own wisdom, he believed that kings were divinely ordained to rule, that their royal rights were unquestionable. So it was hardly surprising that he often quarreled with the Parliament. The Commons were disappointed, and the Puritans were more so, for James preferred the Catholics. The first Stuarts had faced the alternative: either to cooperate with the Puritans and bourgeoisie or to support the reactionary Catholic forces. They preferred to struggle against the Puritans, representatives of new bourgeois ideology.

Charles I (1625–1649) inherited both the English and Scottish thrones at the death of his father, James I. He supported a “divine right” theory of absolute authority for himself as king and sought to rule without the Parliament. Henrietta Maria, a sister of the king of France and a Catholic, became his wife. He was in a constant conflict with the Parliament; the Parliament refused to give the King financial support, and Charles I ruled for 11 years without the Parliament (1629–1640). Gradually this conflict led to a civil war.

§21. The Civil War

In August 1642 Charles I abandoned all hope of negotiating with his opponents in the Parliament and instead declared war against them. The King’s supporters were called Royalists or Cavaliers. His opponents were called Parliamentarians or Roundheads, due to many who wore their hair cut short. This struggle is called the Puritan Revolution, the English Civil War.

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Charles was defeated, because the Army of the Parliament (the New Model Army), with its general Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), was superior to the King’s army.

Charles I was captured, and the English Army demanded the death of the King.

Charles I was bought to trial for treason, and was sentenced to death. He was beheaded on the 30th of January, 1649.

A Council of State was created to govern the country, which consisted of 41 members. In 1653 Oliver Cromwell established a military dictatorship. On the 16th of December, 1653, he publicly accepted the title of Lord Protector. He didn’t dare to take up the title of King, as there was opposition to that in the Army.

All in all, in four years of struggle, around 100,000 Englishmen were killed. Oliver Cromwell was a unique blend of country gentleman and professional soldier, of religious radical and social conservative. He was the source of stability. With his death in 1658 the state collapsed as his son and successor Richard lacked his qualities and was deposed six months after the beginning of his rule. The generals began to fight for power. General G.Monk

managed to take the Parliament vote for restoring the monarchy. The results of the Civil War in England:

The English Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son, Charles II, and replacement of English monarchy with, first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–53), and then with a Protectorate (1653–

59), under Oliver Cromwell’s personal rule. The monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament’s consent, although this concept was legally established only with the Glorious Revolution later in the century.

Episcopacy during the English Civil War. During the period of the English Civil War, the role of bishops as wielders of political power and as upholders of the established church became a matter of heated political controversy. John Calvin formulated a doctrine of Presbyterianism, which held that in the New Testament the offices of presbyter and episkopos were identical; he rejected the doctrine of apostolic succession. Calvin’s follower John Knox brought Presbyterianism to Scotland when the Scottish church was reformed in 1560. In practice, Presbyterianism meant that committees of lay elders had a substantial voice in church government, as opposed to merely being subjects to a ruling hierarchy.

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During the height of Puritan power in the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, episcopacy was formally abolished in the Church of England on 9 October 1646.

The Church of England remained Presbyterian until the Restoration of the monarchy with Charles II in 1660.

As usual in wars of this era, disease caused more deaths than combat. There are no accurate figures for these periods, and it is not possible to give a precise overall figure for those killed in battle, as opposed to those who died from disease, or even from a natural decline in population.

In England, a conservative estimate is that roughly 100,000 people died from war-related disease during the three civil wars. Historical records count 84,830 dead from the wars themselves.

§22. The Monarchy Restoration

Charles II (1661–1685) declared liberty of conscience and demanded his father’s murders to be punished. He was supported by old Royalists. The Puritan country was joyless. Monarchy brought back the gaiety of life. Theatres were reopened; it was also the restoration of Parliament, House of Lords, Anglican church and nobilities’ privileges, he also secured toleration for Catholics in England.

The Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of London 1666 brought a lot of sufferings to people. One of the positive consequences of the London Fire was that Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, which had been badly in need of renovation, was damaged beyond repair. Within days of the fire, architect Christopher Wren presented the king with a plan for a new cathedral. With some alterations this became the magnificent church that stands today. Wren was master of works for the construction of the cathedral for the rest of his life, in addition to being responsible for scores of other churches and the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. In 1650s many talented scientists, artists (Christopher Wren, John Locke, Isaac Newton) established the Royal Society under the patron of the king. The Parliament became divided into two groups: the King Supporters were called Tories, the Opponents – Whigs.

Charles was popularly known as the Merrie Monarch, in reference to both the liveliness and hedonism of his court and the general relief at the return to normality after over a decade of rule by Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans. Charles’s wife, Catherine of Braganza, bore no children, but Charles acknowledged at least 12 illegitimate children by various mistresses. As

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illegitimate children were excluded from the succession, he was succeeded by his brother James.

James II was crowned king 1685 He had two daughters – Mary and Anne from his first Protestant wife and a son from his second Catholic wife. As the Parliament looked for a Protestant rescue they invited William of Orange with his wife Marry from Holland. James the Second fled away from the country for Ireland. So he lost the throne.

James is best known for his belief in the Divine Right of Kings and his attempts to create religious liberty for English Roman Catholics and Protestant nonconformists against the wishes of the English Parliament. Parliament, opposed to the growth of absolutism that was occurring in other European countries, as well as to the loss of legal supremacy for the Church of England, saw their opposition as a way to preserve what they regarded as traditional English liberties. This tension made James’s four-year reign a struggle for supremacy between the English Parliament and the Crown, resulting in his deposition, the passage of the English Bill of Rights, and the Hanoverian succession.

§23. The Glorious Revolution

James II’s eldest daughter Mary II and her husband William III began to rule together. Their time is characteristic of the so called “Glorious Revolution”, the events of 1688. The main idea was that the Parliament was the overall power in the country. All the taxes and commands could be introduced only with the Parliament permission. In 1701 the Parliament passed the Act of Settlement that secured the Protestant succession to the throne.

The revolution was bloodless only in England. In Ireland in 1691 there was a Battle of River Boyne, where king William III with English, Dutch and Danish and also Huguenot troops defeated James II with the Irish and French army. In Scotland William III was recognized in the Lowlands but in the Highlands there was a resistance which led to Massacre of Glencoe. The Glorious Revolution was the political readjustment of the government in the interests of the ruling classes but didn’t involve the majority of the population.

After consolidating political and financial support, William crossed the North Sea and English Channel with a large invasion fleet in November 1688, landing at Torbay. After only two minor clashes between the two opposing armies in England, and anti-Catholic riots in several towns, James’s regime collapsed, largely by a lack of resolve shown by the king. However, this was followed by the protracted Williamite War in Ireland and Dundee’s rising in

Scotland. In England’s geographically-distant American colonies, the revolution led to the collapse of the Dominion of New England and the overthrow of the Province of Maryland’s government. Following a defeat of his forces at the Battle of Reading on 9 December, James and his wife fled the nation; James, however, returned to London for a two-week period that culminated in his final departure for France on 23 December. By threatening to withdraw his troops, William in February 1689 convinced a newly chosen Convention Parliament to make him and his wife joint monarchs.

Internationally, the Revolution was related to the War of the Grand Alliance on mainland Europe. It has been seen as the last successful invasion of England. It ended all attempts by England in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century to subdue the Dutch Republic by military force. However, the resulting economic integration and military co-operation between the English and Dutch Navies shifted the dominance in world trade from the Dutch Republic to England and later to Great Britain.

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List of English kings (till 17th c.)

House of Wessex

Egbert (802–839)

Aethelwulf (839–855)

Aethelbald (855–860)

Aethelbert (860–866)

Aethelred (866–871)

Alfred the Great (871–899)

Edward the Elder (899–925)

Athelstan (925–940)

Edmund the Magnificent (940–946)

Eadred (946–955)

Eadwig (Edwy) All-Fair (955–959)

Edgar the Peaceable (959–975)

Edward the Martyr (975–978)

Aethelred the Unready (978–1016)

Edmund Ironside (1016)

Danish Line

Svein Forkbeard (1014)

Canute the Great (1016–1035)

Harald Harefoot (1035–1040)

Hardicanute (1040–1042)

House of Wessex, Restored

Edward the Confessor (1042–1066)

Harold II (1066)

Norman Line

William I the Conqueror (1066–1087)

William II Rufus (1087–1100)

Henry I Beauclerc (1100–1135)

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Stephen (1135–1154)

Empress Matilda (1141)

Plantagenet, Angevin Line

Henry II Curtmantle (1154–1189)

Richard I the Lionheart (1189–1199)

John Lackland (1199–1216)

Henry III (1216–1272)

Edward I Longshanks (1272–1307)

Edward II (1307–1327)

Edward III (1327–1377)

Richard II (1377–1399)

Plantagenet, Lancastrian Line

Henry IV Bolingbroke (1399–1413)

Henry V (1413–1422)

Henry VI (1422–61, 1470–1471)

Plantagenet, Yorkist Line

Edward IV (1461–70, 1471–1483)

Edward V (1483)

Richard III Crookback (1483–1485)

House of Tudor

Henry VII Tudor (1485–1509)

Henry VIII (1509–1547)

Edward VI (1547–1553)

Lady Jane Grey (1553)

Mary I Tudor (1553–1558)

Elizabeth I (1558–1603)

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Monarchs of Great Britain

House of Stuart

James I (1603–1625)

Charles I (1625–1649)

The Commonwealth

Oliver Cromwell (1649–1658)

Richard Cromwell (1658–1659)

House of Stuart, Restored

Charles II (1660–1685)

James II (1685–1688)

House of Orange and Stuart

William III, Mary II (1689–1702)

Test in English History

1.A wall in Northern England built between 122 and 127 AD to protect the Romans from the Picts is …

a)Hadrian’s Wall

b)Antonine Wall

c)Chinese Wall

d)Berlin Wall

2.King Alfred the Great forced the Vikings to accept Christianity and live within the frontiers of this part of north-eastern England called …

a)Norsemen

b)Danelaw

c)The Danes

d)Danish law

3.A famous battle that started the Norman Conquest in England.

a)The Battle of Britain

b)The Battle of Louis

c)The Battle of Hastings

d)The Battle of the Boyne

4.A written record of the ownership and value of land made for William the Conqueror is …

a)Domesday Book

b)Book of Common Prayer

c)Book of Changes

d)Book of Kells

5.The author of the first serious work on English history, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written in Latin.

a)Becket

b)Alfred

c)Bede

d)Henry VIII

6.The Hundred Year’s War with France lasted for many years with some breaks.

a)100 years

b)111 years

c)106 years

d)116 years

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7.Around 1348 Edward III founded the oldest English order of chivalry.

a)The Order of the Garter

b)The Order of Merit

c)The Order of the British Empire

d)The Order of Knights Hospitallers

8.The leader of the longest uprising of the Celts against Romans in 61 AD was the queen of the Iceni tribe …

a)Boudicca

b)Caractacus

c)Eleanor

d)Guinevere

9.Which of the following kings is associated with the erection of Westminster Abbey.

a)Henry Plantagenet

b)William Rufus

c)William the Conqueror

d)Edward the Confessor

10.What is the meaning of the nickname of Richard I, “Coeur de Lion”?

a)The Heart

b)The Brave Heart

c)The Lion Heart

d)The Lion

11.In 1215 barons of England forced John to accept their charter which is known as …

a)United Nations Charter

b)Magna Carta

c)Liberty Loan Act

d)Habeas Corpus Act

12.The eldest son of king Edward III of England is usually known by this nickname.

a)Brave Heart

b)Robin Hood

c)Brave Prince

d)Black Prince

13.The year 1381 known for an incident when the poor farmers with Wat Tyler as their leader marched to London to protest at their conditions of life and the harsh taxes they had to pay.

a)Wars of the Roses

b)Peasants’ Revolt

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c)Bourgeois Revolution

d)Glorious Revolution

14.The man who set up the first printing firm in Britain was called… and he had a strong influence on the spelling and development of the language.

a)William Caxton

b)Samuel Johnson

c)Geoffrey Chaucer

d)Thomas Malory

15.She was queen of England for nine days in 1553 and executed by Mary I, her Roman Catholic cousin.

a)Lady Jane Grey

b)Elizabeth I

c)Anne Boleyn

d)Mary, Queen of Scots

16.The army organized under Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell to fight the supporters of the king in the Civil War.

a)Royal Army

b)New Model Army

c)Cavaliers

d)Territorial Army

17.The return of the monarchy in 1660 with the proclaiming of Charles II.

a)Revenge

b)Reformation

c)Renaissance

d)Restoration

18.Which of the languages did William the Conqueror speak?

a)English

b)German

c)French

d)Latin

19.The Celts of the British Isles were…

a)Heathens

b)Christians

c)Muslims

20.The Belgic tribal chief Cunobelin called himself…

a)King of Scots

b)King of Picts

c)King of the Britons

d)King of the Belgae

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21.The first Celtic comers to the British Isles were…

a)Brythons

b)Picts

c)Belgae

d)Gaels

22.The Phoenicians lived about…

a)1500–1375 BC

b)1600–1200 BC

c)1750–876 BC

d)1200–332 BC

23.An Alpine race came to subdue them, however, about 1700 BC from the east and south-east, from the Rhineland and the territory of modern…

a)France

b)Poland

c)Sweden

d)Holland

24.The second Julius Caesar’s Expedition was repeated wit an increased army of…

a)15 thousand

b)20 thousand

c)25 thousand

d)30 thousand

25.Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in…

a)72–70 BC

b)58–50 BC

c)60–58 BC

d)48–42 BC

26.A revolt of the tribes of the Celtic North headed by Caractacus happened in…

a)51 AD

b)52 AD

c)53 AD

d)54 AD

27.What part of the British Isles did the Saxons occupy during the 5th century?

a)the south and the south-west of the country

b)the east and the north of the country

c)the west and the north-west of the country

d)the north and south-east of the country

28.A simple freeman in the Anglo-Saxon Society…

a)eorl

b)ceorl

c)thane

29.The inhabitants of what kingdom were baptized after King Athelbert’s conversion to Christianity?

a)Mercia

b)Wessex

c)Kent

d)East Anglia

30.The first Viking raiders came to Britain in …

a)879

b)978

c)987

d)789

31.First fighting ships of England had been built under the rule of…

a)Alfred the Great

b)Edward the Confessor

c)Athelred the Unready

32.He stripped the Anglo-Saxon nobility of its privileges and instituted feudalism.

a)Edward the Confessor

b)William the Conqueror

c)King Edgar

d)Harthacnut

33.His vast possessions in France now joined to England and Normandy formed a new kingdom, called the Angevin Empire.

a)Richard I

b)John

c)Henry II

d)Henry III

34.He spent most of his reign and his subjects’ money fighting in…

a)Cyprus

b)Sicily

c)Malta

d)Palestine

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