"The Shortest History" is a series of books for different regions. With the habit of pairing books to the locations I'm visiting, I decided to read about England. I also paired it with long conversations with Claude, so this will be more like my understanding of English history, and since I'm trying to do it in 1000-2000 words, I'll just write the most salient points for me. ## Periods Basic separation to eras: * ~40 to ~400: The Roman Period (ends with Anglo-Saxon invasion) * ~400 to 1066: Anglo-Saxon-Viking Period (ends with the Norman Conquest at Battle of Hastings) * 1066 - 1485: Norman Medieval Period (ends with the Tudor Dynasty after Battle of Bosworth Field) * 1485 - 1688: Tudor and Stuart era (ends with the Glorious Revolution) * 1688 - 1914: Georgian + Victorian eras and the "long 19th century" (ends with WWII) * 1914 - now: modern history and the welfare state ### ~40 - ~410: Britano-Roman Period The reason the history starts there is that there just isn't too much written history from before. Fun fact: this piece of land wasn't called England at this period and there were no English people (Anglos) in it, but rather Picts, Scots and Gauls. When Romans conquered, crucially they based their rule in the fertile and prosperous south. This in turn caused the south to become even more powerful, and this cycle has continued until now. ### ~410 - 1066 Anglo Saxon Period The Britano-Romans were [conquered by Anglo-Saxon raiders in about 410.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain) This has established what we today call England, English, and the English people. Even though genetically most of the island habitants today are Britano-Roman, the English language and culture took over. > The English conquest was so complete that nothing remains of the Romano-British language in modern England except dreamlike fragments like the yan-tan-tethera way of counting sheep in the north of England (one-two-three in Celtic) or hickory-dickory-dock (eight-nine-ten) John McWorther actually disagrees in [[Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, John McWorther]], and claims that some of the grammatical structures of English differ greatly from other Germanic languages and it's due to Welsh/Cornish/Scots/Pict impact. This is the time of warring brother-kings, Viking invasions and settlement, strengthening Catholic institutions, and even a Danish king named Cnut. It all finishes with the Norman invasion. ### 1066 - 1485 Norman/Medieval Period If you can pick one event that is most significant to English history, it would be Battle of Hastings in 1066, which kicked off the [Norman Conquest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest). The Normans were from Normandy (which, fun fact, means "north men", because it was given to raiding Vikings by the Carolingian Empire in the 900s). In 1066, William the Conqueror (probably actually spoke French and called himself Guillaume) started his invasion of the British island. In the span of a few years, he took it over entirely, and then promptly moved all earthly possessions of the English to the new French-speaking elite and the Church with the [Domesday Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book). For the following four centuries, England was a Kingdom that straddled the English channel, with a French and Latin-speaking elite and lots of English peasants which had very few rights. Richard Lionheart only spent 10 months of his reign in England! At this point, England was an European power par-excellence. The culmination of this period is War of Hundred Years with France, which put an end to the English presence in the continent, and then War of Roses (after which the Tudors took over). ### 1485 - 1688 Tudors and Stuarts This is probably the most interesting period and is also the backstory for [[Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel (annotations)]] by Hillary Mantel. Four significant trends: * The monarchy began appointing "new men" to positions of power, favoring merit and loyalty over hereditary titles (Thomas Cromwell, protagonist of "Wolf Hall" is chief of them) * Parliament became a source of power, gradually reducing the absolute authority of the monarchy. * Reformation marked a move away from Catholicism (Act of Supremacy, 1534) * No more money-losing land wars against Europeans, and instead, Britain became a naval superpower that made profitable conquests Henry VIII's dramas: six marriages, two annulments, and two executions. His break from the Catholic Church to marry Anne Boleyn resulted in the English Reformation, fundamentally altering the religious fabric of the nation. These tensions peaked with a civil war between monarch and Parliament, and the execution of King Charles I in 1649 at the hand of Oliver Cromwell (grand-grandchild of Thomas Cromwell), followed by a temporary abolition of monarchy and a pretty horrible government. It all culminated with the Glorious Revolution of 1688: William of Orange was invited to invade England, ruling with consent by Parliament. My take here is that what happened across weeks in 1789 in France happened across centuries in England with slow and steady accumulation of power by the Parliament. ### 1688 - 1914: Georgian + Victorian (and Edwardian) eras, the "long 19th century" This period saw England (and later Britain) transform into a global superpower through industrialization, colonization and empire-building. The Industrial Revolution began in England, fundamentally changing society through urbanization, technological advancement, and new economic systems. The textile industry, steam power, and railway networks drove unprecedented growth. The Victorian era (1837-1901) marked the height of British power. The British Empire expanded to cover about a quarter of the world's land mass, earning the phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets." When I think of this era I think about George Banks from Mary Poppins: > It's grand to be an Englishman in 1910 > King Edward's on the throne; it's the age of men > I'm the lord of my castle, the sov'reign, the liege! > I treat my subjects--servants, children, wife > With a firm but gentle hand, noblesse oblige! ### 1914 - now: modern history and the welfare state Two World Wars marked the beginning of this period, severely impacting Britain's global position and economy. The aftermath saw the dismantling of the British Empire, with most colonies gaining independence. India's independence in 1947 particularly symbolized the end of Britain's imperial era. The post-war period saw the creation of the NHS (National Health Service) in 1948 and the development of a comprehensive welfare state under Clement Attlee's Labour government. Britain joined the European Economic Community (later EU) in 1973, though later voted to leave in 2016 (Brexit). ## Themes ### North vs South A premise that Hawen hammers home again and again that the Trent (a river in Britain) is a dividing line between the more prosperous south and the plebian north, and this is true for the literally entire history of Britain. He backs it up with more maps that I care to list, again and again. Here's one: ![[Shortest.png]] The cultural differences sustained across millenia and permeated across all aspects, including (of course) dialects: > From the 1870s, the accent which became known as received pronunciation, or RP, was the sole permissible one. It was, of course, a variant of Southern English. He finds that even party voting fell for a long period across these lines (Labour - north + celts, Tories - south). ### United Kingdom vs England First of all, if you need a primer on UK vs GB vs England:  Hawes goes into a lot of detail on the ups and downs in the relationship between the English, Scots, Welsh, Irish and the rest of the commonwealth. At various different points these peoples have considered themselves as part of the same nation, or same Empire. The English were in a peculiar position: even though England (especially South, especially London) was the seat of the Empire and where the elites ruled, the "ordinary English" often got the worst of both ends: they were not part of the ruling elite, and they were not represented by their countrymen's elite (for those favored the empire). > the ordinary English were more than ever just another people within the empire of their elite [...] The new state was thoroughly an elite construct. ### Class warfare Beginning in 1066, for more than five centuries the ordinary English had a big cultural gap to their elite, from language to customs. This is something that stayed in the English (and later American) culture. For instance, think about the underdog love: >the Bad Guys of American mass culture, whether they are corrupt elites, Nazis, evil masterminds, Russians, or aliens, always use the half-French language of the English elite. The Good Guys speak in language Harold’s men might almost have understood. Or for that matter, Mr. Burns and Homer. There's something deep in the English psyche, with hyper awareness of class, both a reverence to it and a suspicion of it.  #published 2025-02-02