English

In 1763, Britain acquired the French colony of New France and the Spanish colony of Florida.

• levelling of distinction between /A/ and /O/; father and bother rhyme; the so-called cot-caught merger (almost everywhere except Northeast)

• intervocalic /t/ -> /d/; ladder and latter sound very similar or identical, distinguished perhaps by degree of aspiration of consonant and/or by length of preceding vowel.

Differences in British English and American English

American English has both spelling and grammatical differences from British English, some of which were made as part of an attempt to rationalize the English spelling used by British English at the time. Unlike many 20th century language reforms (e.g., Turkey's alphabet shift, Norway's spelling reform) the American spelling changes were not driven by government, but by textbook writers and dictionary makers.

The first American dictionary was written by Noah Webster in 1828. At the time America was a relatively new country and Webster's particular contribution was to show that the region spoke a different dialect from Britain, and so he wrote a dictionary with many spellings differing from the standard. Many of these changes were initiated unilaterally by Webster.

Webster also argued for many "simplifications" to the idiomatic spelling of the period. Somewhat ironically, many, although not all, of his simplifications fell into common usage alongside the original versions, resulting in a situation even more confused than before.

Many words are shortened and differ from other versions of English. Spellings such as center are used instead of centre in other versions of English. And there are many other variations. Conversely, American English can sometimes favor more wordy or elongated versions of British English, as in transportation for transport.

A key area where American English has grown (on both sides of the Atlantic), is in the world of Business and Commerce, where use of the rhetorical euphemism is common. One example would be the phrase "are you comfortable with that". This phrase will typically be used by a business manager introducing a change which may, or may not, be welcome. A negative answer is neither expected nor, indeed invited. However, the question is, at least on the face of it, conciliatory.

American English has further changed due to the influx of non-English speakers whose words sometimes enter American vernacular. Many words have entered American English from Spanish, etc.

Examples of common American English loanwords, not common in British English (many, however, would be recognised due to Hollywood movies):

From African languages

gumbo

okra, or a stew thickened with okra

From Dutch

cookie	baked sweet, never called a biscuit, digestive; sometimes called shortbread
kill	creek

From English

attic	a loft; the topmost story of a house
back and forth	as in backwards and forwards
bug	any kind of insect
bushel	a common unit of measurement
cabin	a humble dwelling
closet	a cupboard
deck	a pack of cards
fall	the season also known as autumn
hog	a pig
jack	a knave within a deck of cards
junk	as in rubbish
rear	as in raising an animal or child
mad	as in the sense of being angry
noon	midday (originally nones, the ninth hour of daylight, or 3pm
plumb	as being complete
rooster	a male fowl
stocks	as in stocks and bonds; shares
zero	as in nought

From French

banquette	a raised sidewalk
beignet	a square, holeless doughnut
boudin	a spicy link sausage
café au lait	a mixture of half milk and half coffee
chowder	a thick seafood stew
étouffée	a spicy stew of vegetables and seafood
jambalaya	rice cooked with herbs, spices, and ham, chicken, or seafood
lagniappe	an extra or unexpected gift
pain perdu	New Orleans-style French toast
pirogue	a canoe made from a hollowed tree trunk
praline	a candy made of nuts suspended in a boiled sugar syrup
toboggan	a sled
zydeco	a native Louisiana style of music

From Native American languages

bayou	a swampy, slow-moving stream or outlet
cape (kepan)	a headland
chinook	a strong wind blowing down off the mountains
hickory (pawcohiccora)	a North American deciduous tree of the genus Carya
high muckamuck	an important person
mugwump	a political independent
that neck of the woods (naiack)	an expression; from whence a person hails
powwow	a gathering or meeting, esp. of Native Americans
raccoon	the raccoon, a small mammal
skunk (seganku)	the skunk, a badgerlike, foul-smelling mammal
squash (askutasquash)	a vegetable, similar to English marrow
succotash	mixture of corn and other vegetables like peas, beans
tipi	a kind of tent
woodchuck (wuchak)	a marmot-like mammal

From Spanish

adobe	a mud-based construction material
arroyo	gulch, often dry except when it has rained recently
barrio	shantytown or historically poverty-afflicted area of a city
burro	donkey
barbecue	a grill
desperado	criminal
fiesta	party
frijoles	beans
gringo	a disparaging term for a foreigner, esp. English or American
hacienda	particular style of house
hammock	a bed
hombre	man
maize	a kind of grain
mesa	flat topped mountain
pronto	immediately

From Yiddish

klutz	a clumsy person
kvetch	complain
lox	cured salmon
schlep	to carry or to travel
schmuck	a fool, or the penis
schmutz	dirt
shlemiel	a fool

From Japanese

tycoon	successful business leader
honcho	leader, ie: "The Head Honcho"

For detailed differences in British English and American English see American and British English differences.

During the 6th Century there was organised British resistance to the invaders which succeeded in slowing the invasion, if not halting it for some time, which culminated in the Battle of Mons Badonicus. A figure today known as "King Arthur" may have been the leader and his fabled "Knights of the Round Table" may preserve the names of the leaders who fought with him at this battle, as well as in other parts on the island. The institution of High King of Britain was abolished following the death of Cadwallon the Great in the 8th Century and appears to testiment to the feeling of resignation the Britons must have felt. Interestingly the modern Welsh word for England "Lloegyr" means "the lost lands".

By the beginning of the 7th century AD the vast majority of the island of Britain was under the control of a number of Germanic tribes, the best known of which were the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The process that they came to possess this island is sometimes collectively known as the Saxon conquest, although this is something of a misnomer. Other tribes, such as the Frisians, are known to have taken part, but their contribution is unknown. They established a large number of kingdoms in what today is known as England which became consolidated into seven states collectively known as the Heptarchy.

According to tradition, Kent was established first by a group known as the Jutes led by a King Hengest and possibly by another - maybe his brother - called Horsa. Horsa may be another name for Hengest in a different tongue. Tradition holds that the Saxons advanced inland and Sussex was established next, swiftly followed by Essex. Middlesex and Surrey may have had a short-lived independent existence but were absorbed into Essex.

The Angles established kingdoms in the north, east and centre of Britain, namely: East Anglia, Mercia, Deira and Bernicia. East Anglia's beginnings are a complete mystery and hardly any records survive of its foundation or indeed the fate of the native Britains - once the mighty celtic Iceni tribe - who had dwelt there before. The name Mercia may mean "marches" i.e. a frontier area facing the Celtic romano-Britains or Welsh. Deira and Bernicia appear to be Anglian corruptions of older British geographical names and the two states merged together to form the kingdom of Northumbria.

• Tiw:the god of war = Tuesday
• Woden: the clever one-eyed leader of the gods, and the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the Norse god Odin = Wednesday
• Thunor, the Anglo-Saxon form of Thor: the thunder hammer = Thursday
• Frige: the love-goddess = Friday

Topics to be Added:

• Old English language
• Aelle of Sussex
• Gildas
• King Alfred
• Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
• St. Augustine
• Battle of Mons Badonicus
• The Venerable Bede
• Bretwalda
• King Canute
• Danegeld
• Danelaw
• Battle of Deorham
• Ceawlin of Wessex
• Ethelred the Unready
• Hengest
• Hereward the Wake
• Offa
• States in Medieval Britain
• Weregild
• Anglo-Saxon law
• Anglo-Saxon architecture

Evolution of the words

The meanings of Britain and British have evolved over time and as they have gained political significance.

In 325 BC the Greek Pytheas of Massalia visited a group of islands which he called Pretaniké, the principal ones being Albionon (Albion) and Ierne (Erin). (The records of this visit date from much more recent times, so there is room for these details to be disputed.) To linguists, this suggests the Brythonic inhabitants called themselves Priteni.

When the Romans took control of the largest island they called their possessions Britannia. The earlier celtic inhabitants became known as Britons and the island as Britain. Some centuries after the Romans had left, some of these Britons migrated to the near continent. About 1000 years later (i.e. by the late Middle Ages) the region they had moved to was known as Brittany, and to distinguish the island the term Great Britain was used (compare the French names Bretagne and Grande Bretagne).

The kingdoms established on the island of Great Britain were perceived to be dominant over the whole archipelago, which had thus became known as the British Isles. In 1603 the kingdoms shared one King, James VI of Scotland and I of England. He proposed unifying the kingdoms under the name of Great Britain. This eventually came to pass in 1707 when the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed. The adjective used for the kingdom was British.

Since its formation, the kingdom was enlarged in 1801 by the addition of the island of Ireland, then reduced, around 1920, by the loss of what is now the Republic of Ireland. The name of the kingdom changed accordingly, culminating in The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. To some writers the meaning of British and Britain have changed with the Kingdom. The word British is now in common use to indicate United Kingdom (UK) nationality because there is no suitable substitute. However, to other writers Britain is still synonymous with only the island of Great Britain.

Other terms also cause confusion. Great Britain is undisputedly the name of the large island, but is occasionally used to mean the UK, for instance in the modern Olympic Games. The British Isles is still a geographical term for the archipelago, but it can also still be seen as implying dominance by Great Britain, so it is sometimes avoided. The prefix Anglo, usually meaning English, is sometimes used to denote the UK, as in Anglo-Irish. See the respective articles.

Early usages

• Pretaniké; Pretanikai nesoi (Pretanic isles) 325 BC
• Britannia 55 BC (Julius Caesar, Roman invasion of Britain)
• Brittisc 855 (OED)
• Grate Briteigne 1548 (OED)
• British isles 1550 (in Latin; map of Sebastian Munster cited in British Isles article)

• List of country name etymologies
• 1707 Act of Union
• 1801 Act of Union
• United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
• Ireland: Declaration of Independence
• Irish Free State Agreement
• United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• List of United Kingdom topics

England also took over the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, which was renamed New York in 1664. With New Amsterdam the British came to control the former New Sweden which the Dutch had conquered earlier. This became part of Pennsylvania. Britain acquired the French colony of New France and the Spanish colony of Florida in 1763. New France became the Canadas.

In the north the Hudson's Bay Company actively traded for fur with the Indians, and had competed with French fur traders. The company came to control the entire drainage basin of Hudson Bay called Rupert's Land. The Hudson Bay drainage south of the 49th parallel went to the United States in 1818. Britain also colonized the west coast of North America with the colonies of Vancouver Island, founded in 1849 and New Caledonia, founded in 1846 (later combined and named British Columbia). In 1867 the colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the Province of Canada (the southern portion of modern-day Ontario and Quebec) combined to form modern Canada. Quebec (including what is now the southern portion of Ontario) and Nova Scotia had been conquered from the French. The colonies of Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia joined over the next six years, and Newfoundland joined in 1949. Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory were ceded to Canada in 1870. This area now consists of the provinces of Manitoba (admitted after negotiation between Canada and a Métis provisional government in 1870), Saskatchewan, and Alberta, as well as the Northwest Territories and the territory of Nunavut.

In order of settlement or founding

• Roanoke founded 1586, disappeared the next year
• Jamestown Settlement, founded 1607
• Newfoundland, founded in 1610
• Plymouth, founded 1620
• Dorchester Company planted a unsuccessful fishing colony on Cape Ann (at modern Gloucester, Massachusetts) in 1624
• Salem, Massachusetts, settled in 1628, merged with Massachusetts Bay Colony the next year
• New Hampshire, settled in 1623
• Massachusetts Bay Colony founded 1629
• Connecticut, founded 1633
• Maryland, founded in 1634
• Rhode Island, first settled in 1636
• New York captured 1664
• New Jersey, founded in 1664
• Rupert's Land, territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, founded in 1670
• Pennsylvania founded 1681, although first settled by Dutch and Swedes
• Delaware separated from Pennsylvania in 1704
• North Carolina, first settled at Roanoke in 1586, became separate colony in 1710
• South Carolina, first permanent settlement in 1670, became separate colony in 1710.
• Georgia, first settled in about 1670, formal colony in 1732
• Nova Scotia, site of abortive Scottish colony in 1629, British gained complete control from French in 1763
• Quebec, British gained complete control from French in 1763
• East Florida, acquired from Spain in 1763 in exchange for returning Cuba, lost to Spain in 1779
• West Florida, acquired from Spain in 1763 in exchange for returning Cuba, lost to Spain in 1779
• Prince Edward Island, separated from Nova Scotia 1769
• New Brunswick, separated from Nova Scotia in 1784
• Ontario, separated from Quebec in 1791 as Upper Canada
• Vancouver Island, Hudson's Bay Company fort in 1843, royal charter in 1849, merged with British Columbia in 1866.
• British New Caledonia, also called Columbia, administered by Hudson Bay Company from 1846, became colony and renamed British Columbia in 1858.

British Caribbean Colonies

In order of settlement or founding

• Bermuda - The islands were settled from 1612 by a London company. It remains a British territory.
• Saint Kitts - The island was settled by Sir Thomas Warner in 1623. The following year the French also settled part of St Kitts. After they massacred the Caribs, the British and French turned on each other and St Kitts changed hands between the two several times before the Treaty of Paris gave the island to Britain.
• Barbados - The island was settled in 1625. It became independent in 1966.
• Nevis - The island was permanently settled in 1628. It became independent in 1983.
• Bahamas - The islands were settled from 1629. They became independent in 1971.
• Antigua - The island was settled in 1632. It became independent as Antigua and Barbuda in 1981
• Barbuda - The island was settled ?. It became independent as Antigua and Barbuda in 1981.
• Montserrat - The island was settled in 1632. It was occupied by the French in 1664-68 and 1782-84. It remains a British territory.
• Anguilla - The island was settled in 1650. Its government was united with St. Christopher from 1882 until 1967, when it declared its separation. It was brought back under British administration in 1969. It remains a British territory.
• Jamaica - The island was conquered from Spain in 1655. It became independent in 1962.
• British Virgin Islands - The islands were settled from 1666. It remains a British territory.
• Turks and Caicos - The islands were first permanently settled in the 1750s. They remain a British territory.
• Dominica - The island was captured from the French in 1761. The French occupied it again from 1778 to 1783. Dominica became independent in 1978.
• Trinidad and Tobago - The island of Tobago was captured in 1762. The island of Trinidad was captured from the Spanish in 1797. The two governments were joined in 1888. They became independent in 1962.
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Saint Vincent was colonized in 1762. French captured it in 1779 but it was restored to Britain in 1783. They were formerly part of the British colony of the Windward Islands from 1871 to 1958. It gained full independence in 1979.
• Granada - The island was conquered from France in 1762. The French reoccupied it from 1779 to 1783. It became independent in 1974.
• Saint Lucia - The island was captured from the French in 1778, but returned to them in 1783. In 1796 and in 1803 it was captured again, to be permanently annexed by Britain in 1814. St Lucia became independent in 1979.
• Cayman Islands - The islands were acquired from Spain in 1870. It remains a British territory.

British Central and South American Colonies

Mosquito Coast - This area was first settled in 1630. It was briefly assigned to Honduras in 1859, then ceded to Nicaragua in 1860.

British Guiana - The British began colonies in the Guiana area in the early 17th century. In the Treaty of Breda, the Dutch gained control of these colonies. Britain later controlled various colonies in the area. The Congress of Vienna (1815) awarded the settlements of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo in the Guiana region to Great Britain; they were united as British Guiana in 1831. It became independent as Guyana in 1966.

See Also

• Primary Education
  • Infant School or Primary School
    • Reception, age 4 to 5
    • Year 1, age 5 to 6
    • Year 2, age 6 to 7 (KS1 National Curriculum Tests - England only)
  • Junior School or Primary School
    • Year 3, age 7 to 8
    • Year 4, age 8 to 9
    • Year 5, age 9 to 10
    • Year 6, age 10 to 11 (Eleven plus exams in some areas of England, KS2 National Curriculum Tests)
• Secondary Education
  • Middle School, High School or Secondary School
    • Year 7, old First Form, age 11 to 12
    • Year 8, old Second Form, age 12 to 13
    • Year 9, old Third Form, age 13 to 14 (KS3 National Curriculum Tests, known as SATs (Standard Assessment Tests))
  • Upper School or Secondary School
    • Year 10, old Fourth Form, age 14 to 15
    • Year 11, old Fifth Form, age 15 to 16 (old O-Level examinations, modern GCSE examinations)
  • Upper School, Secondary School, or Sixth Form College
    • Year 12 or Lower Sixth, age 16 to 17 (AS-level examinations)
    • Year 13 or Upper Sixth, age 17 to 18 (A2-level examinations. Both AS-levels and A2-levels count towards A-levels.)

The Post War Period

Due to the failures of the Tripartite system, the Labour government of the time requested proposals from all the UK's regions for them to move from the Tripartite system to Comprehensive Schools. Note that this was an optional reform for the regions, and as of late 2003 some regions still have the Tripartite System. Education was made compulsory up to age 16 in 1972.

Following the 1979 General Election, the Conservative party regained power in central government, and made two main changes in this period:

1. New Vocationalism was expanded (Labour had done some small efforts beforehand, but the conservatives expanded it considerably). This was seen as an effort to reduce the high youth unemployment figures, which were seen as one of the causes of the rioting that was relatively commonplace at the end of the seventies.
2. The Assisted Places scheme was introduced in 1980, where gifted children who could not afford to go to fee-paying schools would be given free places in those schools if they could pass the school's entrance exam.

The Education Reform Act of 1988

The 1988 Education Reform Act made quite a few changes to the system of education. These changes were aimed at creating an education 'market' so that schools were competing against each other for 'customers' (pupils), and that bad schools would lose pupils and close, leaving only the good schools open.

The reforms are as follows:

• The National Curriculum was introduced, which forced schools to teach certain subjects, as opposed to the choice of subjects being up to the school as had previously been the case.
• Assessments of the National Curriculum at the key stages 1 to 3 (ages 7, 11, 14 respectively) through what were formerly called SATs. At key stage 4 (age 16), the assessments were done with the GCSE exam.
• League Tables started to be compiled showing statistics for each school, which are published in newspapers so parents can see which schools are doing well in each area of the country and which aren't.
• Formula funding was introduced, which basically meant that the more children a school could attract to it, the more money it got.
• Open Enrolment and choice for parents were brought back, so that parents could (within limits) choose what school their children went to.
• OFSTED was set up to inspect schools.
• Schools could, if enough of their pupils' parents agreed, opt out of local government control, becoming opt-out schools and receiving funding direct from central government. The enticement for schools was that the government offered more money than the school would get from the local authority, and this was seen as a political move given that local authorities were not run by the Conservative party as a rule, and central government was.

New Labour's Educational Policies from 1997

Following the 1997 General Election, the Labour party regained power in central government. New Labour's political ideology meant that most of the changes introduced by the Conservatives during their time in power stayed.

The following changes happened:

• The previous Labour focus on the Comprehensive system was shifted to a focus on tailoring education to each child's ability. Critics see this as reminiscent of the original (and proven to have failed) intentions of the Tripartite system.
• Comprehensives are being turned into specialist schools (known as Centres of Excellence), which will teach the National Curriculum subjects plus a few specialist branches of knowledge (e.g. business studies) not found in most other schools. These schools will be allowed to select 10% of their pupils.
  • Numbers: In 1997 there were 196 of these schools. In August 2002 there were 1000. By 2006 the plan is to have 2000, and the goal is to make all secondary schools specialist eventually.
• The concept of Beacon schools was introduced, where in any area of deprivation a school that is doing well is marked as a Beacon school, and shares its ideas and methods with other less successful schools.
• Academies were introduced, which are schools that have done so badly as to close, and have been reopened under the control of central government and local businesses/interested third parties.
• Education Action Zones were introduced, which are deprived areas run by an action forum of people within that area with the intention of make that area's schools better.
• Vocational qualifications were renamed/restructured as follows:
  • GNVQs became Vocational GCSEs and AVCEs.
  • NVQs scope expanded so that a degree-equivalent NVQ was possible.
• The New Deal was introduced, which made advisors available to long-term unemployed (in the UK this is defined as being unemployed for more than 6 months) to give help and money to those who want to go back into Education.
• Introduced Literacy and Numeracy hours into schools, and set targets for literacy and numeracy.
• Set Truancy targets.
• Set a maximum class size of 30 for 5-7 year olds.
• Introduced the EMA, which is paid to those between 16 and 18 as an enticement to remain in full-time education and get A-Levels/AVCEs.
• Introduced Curriculum 2000, which reformed the Further Education system into the current structure of AS levels, A2 levels and Key Skills.

See also

• Education in Northern Ireland
• Education in Wales
• Education in Scotland

• Education in the United Kingdom
• Education by country
• UK topics

External links

England, as a significant political entity, ceased to exist with the Act of Union 1707, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. All of Great Britain has been ruled by the government of the United Kingdom between that date and 1999, when the first elections to the newly created Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly left England as the only nation in the Union with no representative body.

There are calls by some for an English Parliament but the current Labour government favours the establishment of regional governments, claiming that England is too large to be governed as a sub-state entity. In some regions, notably the south-west and south-east there is little interest, but in the north of England there is some support. Referenda will take place on this issue, possibly some time in 2004, and consideration has still to be given to what powers regions would be granted, and what impact this may have on the powers of counties or central government. Considerable disquiet was caused when changes were made to the system of counties in 1889.

Unlike the other nations of the Kingdom, there is very little call for independence of England from the UK. This is overwhelmingly due to its dominance in the Union. Those groups that do campaign for such a thing tend to be right-wing organisations.

Historically, the highest level of local government in England was the county. These divisions had emerged from a range of units of old, pre-unification England, whether they were Kingdoms, such as Essex and Sussex; Duchies, such as Yorkshire, Cornwall and Lancashire or simply tracts of land given to some noble, as is the case with Berkshire.

These counties all still exist in, or near to their original form as the traditional counties. In many places, however, they have been heavily modified or abolished outright as administrative counties. This came about due to a number of factors.

The fact that the counties were so small meant, and still means, that there was no regional government able to co-ordinate an overarching plan for the area. This was especially true in the metropolitan areas surrounding the cities, as the county lines were usually drawn up before the industrial revolution and the mass urbanisation of the country.

The solution was the creation of large metropolitan counties centred on cities. These were later broken up, with several other counties, into unitary authorities, unifying the county and district/borough levels of government.

London is a special case, and is the one Region which currently has a representative authority as well as a directly elected mayor. The thirty-two London boroughs remain the local form of government in the city.

Other than Greater London, the official Regions are:

• North East England
• North West England
• Yorkshire and the Humber
• West Midlands
• East Midlands
• East of England
• South West England
• South East England

England comprises most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain. It is bordered to the north by Scotland and to the west by Wales.
Most of England consists of rolling terrain, but the country is more mountainous in the north. The dividing line between terrain types is usually indicated by the Tees-Exe line.

The Channel Tunnel near Dover links England to the European mainland.

Major rivers:

• Thames
• Severn
• Trent
• Humber
• Tyne
• Mersey
• Dee

• London
• Birmingham
• Manchester
• Bristol
• Liverpool
• Leeds
• Newcastle upon Tyne
• Sheffield

England is both the most populous and the most ethnically diverse country in the United Kingdom with around 49 million inhabitants, of which roughly a tenth are from non-White ethnic groups.

This population is made up of immigrants who have arrived over millennia. The principal waves of migration have been in c. 600 BC (Celts), the Roman period (garrison soldiers from throughout the Empire), 350-550 (Angles, Saxons, Jutes), 800-900 (Vikings, Danes), 1066 (Normans), 1650-1750 (European refugees and Huguenots), 1880-1940 (Jews), 1950-1985 (Caribbeans, Africans, South Asians), 1985-present (East Europeans, Kurds, refugees).

The general prosperity of England has also made it a destination for economic migrants particularly from Ireland and Scotland. This diverse ethnic mix continues to create a diverse and dynamic language that is widely used internationally.

Generally, an English person is someone who lives in England regardless of their racial origin. However, some people (including many south Asians and whites) use the label as only referring to those people of Anglo-Saxon origin - preferring to instead use "British" as a racially neutral label. This is only possible due to the somewhat hazy distinction that many people in the country make between "England" and "Britain".

See also Population of England - historical population estimates

• English literature
  • Shakespeare
  • Sir Thomas Browne
• English national football team, English Football League teams (Soccer)
• National parks (England and Wales)
• Food and Drink

Miscellaneous Topics

• English Law
• List of monarchs of England - Kings of England family tree
• List of English people
• Angeln (region in northern Germany)
• UK topics
• List of British postal codes

External links

Prior to the English Civil War, Parliament was not a permanent branch of English government, but temporary advisory committees summoned by the English monarch whenever additional tax revenue was required, and subject to dissolution at the monarch's will. Because responsibility for collecting taxes was in the hands of the English gentry, the English monarchs needed their help in order to guarantee that revenue came in without difficulty. If the gentry were to refuse to collect the King's taxes, the King would be powerless to compel them. Parliaments allowed representatives of the gentry to meet, converse and send policy proposals to the King (in the form of Bills). These representatives did not, however, have any means to force their will upon the King.

A potentially more troublesome issue was Charles' insistance in joining the wars raging in Europe, which he saw as something of a holy crusade. This alone might not have been a problem, except that Charles had placed his own "favourite", George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, in command. Parliment was rather suspicious of Buckingham, who they had to deal with under James as well, and eventually they decided to support the war effort only on the provisio that Buckingham could be be recalled if he did not perform. The Parliament of 1625 then granted him the right to collect customs duties only for a year and not, as was usual, for his entire reign. After a disastrous raid on France, Parliament dismissed Buckingham in 1626, and Charles, furious at what he considered insolence, dismissed the Parliament.

However Charles was determined to rule without summoning another Parliament, and this required him to devise new means of raising extraordinary revenue. Among the most controversial of these was the revival and extension of ship money. This tax had been levied in the medieval era on seaports, but Charles extended it to inland counties as well. As a levy for the Royal Navy, ship money was, according to Charles and his supporters, needed for the defence of the realm therefore within the legitimate scope of the royal prerogative.

The tax had not been approved by Parliament, however, and a number of prominent men refused to pay it on these grounds. Reprisals against Sir John Eliot, one of the prime movers behind the Petition of Right, and the prosecution of William Prynne and John Hampden (who were fined after losing their case 7-5 for refusing to pay ship money, taking a stand against the legality of the tax) aroused widespread indignation. Charles' use of the Court of Star Chamber in this issue also served to anger many, as the court had always been seen as the citizenry's last appeal against the monarch's power, and was now apparently being used against them.

Charles believed in a pomp-and-ceremony version of the Church of England, a feeling held by his main political advisor, Archbishop William Laud. Laud had become the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633 and started a series of reforms in the Church to make it more ceremonial, starting with the replacement of the wooden communion tables with stone altars. Puritans accused Laud of trying to reintroduce Catholicism, and when they complained Laud had them arrested. In 1637 John Bastwick, Henry Burton and William Prynne had their ears cut off for writing pamphlets attacking Laud's views - a rare penalty for gentlemen to suffer, and one that aroused anger.

To make matters worse, Laud and Charles both agreed that a necessary first step to true unification of Scotland and England was to introduce a common prayer book. The Scots reacted explosively when it was introduced in the spring of 1638, and sought to purge bishops from the Scots church altogether. It took a year, but Charles raised an army in 1639 and sent it north to end the rebellion. After a disastrous skirmish he decided to seek a truce, the Pacification of Berwick, and was humiliated by being forced to agree not only to not to interfere with religion in Scotland, but to pay the Scottish war expenses as well.

Meanwhile another of Charles's chief advisers, Thomas Wentworth, had risen to the role Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1632 and brought peace to the island by forming an alliance of Roman Catholics against the Protestants. In 1639 he had been recalled to England and in 1640 granted the title Earl of Strafford, as Charles attempted to have him work his magic again in Scotland. This time he was not so lucky, and the English forces fled the field in their second encounter with the Scots in 1640.

With Ireland apparently peaceful after Strafford's able administration of eight years, Charles thought he saw a way out -- Strafford had raised an Irish Catholic army and was prepared to use it against Scotland. Of course the very thought of a Catholic army campaigning against the Scots from protestant England was considered outrageous by the parliamentary party. In early 1641 Strafford was arrested and sent to the Tower of London on the charge of treason. John Pym made the claim that Wentworth's statements of being ready to campaign against "the kingdom" were in fact directed at England itself. The case could not be proven, so the House of Commons, led by John Pym and Henry Vane, resorted to a Bill of Attainder. Unlike treason, attainder required only the burden of proof, but it also required the king's signature. Charles, still incensed over the Common's handling of Buckingham, refused. Strafford himself, hoping to head off the war he saw looming, wrote to the king and asked him to reconsider. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was executed on May 12th, 1641.

Instead of saving the country from war, Wentworth's sacrifice in fact doomed it to one. Within months the Irish Catholics, fearing a resurgence of Protestant power, stuck first and the entire country soon decended into chaos. Rumors started that the Irish were being supported by the king, and Puritan members of the Commons were soon agitating that this was the sort of thing Charles had in store for all of them.

On January 4, 1642, Charles attempted to arrest 5 members of the Parliament (John Hampden, John Pym, Arthur Haselrig, Denzil Holles, and William Strode) on a charge of treason; this attempt failed, however, as they had been tipped off and gone into hiding prior to the arrival of the king's troops. When the troops marched into Parliament the officer in charge demanded of the Speaker where the five were. The Speaker replied that he 'had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear save as this house [the Commons] directs me.' In other words, the Speaker was a servant of Parliament, rather than of the King. Parliamentary supporters took to arms to protect the five men as they escaped across London.

In 1642 the military governor of Kingston upon Hull, Sir John Hotham declared the city for the Parliamentarian cause and refused the King entry into the city and its large arsenal. Charles took great personal affront to this act, and declared Hotham a traitor. Charles I besieged the city unsuccessfully. This siege precipitated open conflict between the Parliamentarian and Royalist causes.

At the outset of the conflict, although the Royal Navy and most English cities favoured Parliament, the King found considerable support in rural communities; however much of the country was neutral. It is thought that between them both sides had only in the region of 15,000 men. However, the war quickly spread and eventually involved every level of society throughout the British Isles. Many areas attempted to remain neutral but found it impossible to withstand both the King and Parliament. On one side the king and his supporters fought for traditional government in Church and state. On the other, supporters of Parliament sought radical changes in religion and economic policy, and major reforms in the distribution of power at the national level. In addition, Parliament was not the united front portrayed in much of later history. At one point in the nine years of war there were more members of Parliament and Lords in the King's parliament than there were at Westminster.

Parliament did, however, have more resources at its disposal, due to its possession all major cities including the large arsenals at Hull and London. For his part, Charles hoped that quick victories would negate Parliament's advantage in material, which precipitated the first battle, the first siege of Hull in July 1642 which provided a decisive victory for Parliament.

A latter battle at Edgehill was inconclusive, but regarded by the Royalists as a victory. One of the king's outstanding leaders was his nephew, Prince Rupert of the Palatinate, a dashing cavalry commander. Playing a minor part in the battle on the other side was a cavalry troop raised by a country gentleman, evangelical puritan, and former Member of Parliament named Oliver Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell was later to devise the New Model Army system still evident in military organisation today. This was characterised by a unified command structure and professionalism, which would firmly swing military advantage towards Parliament. The second action of the war was the stand-off at Turnham Green which saw Charles forced to withdraw to Oxford. This was to be his base for the remainder of the war.

In 1643 the Royalist forces won at Adwalton Moor and gained control of most of Yorkshire. Subsequent victories in the west of England at Lansdowne and at Roundway Down also went to the Royalists. Prince Rupert then was able to take Bristol. In the same year, Oliver Cromwell formed his troop of "Ironsides", a disciplined unit which demonstrated his military ability. With their assistance, he was victorious at the Battle of Gainsborough in July.

After an inconclusive battle at Newbury in September, on October 11, 1643, the Parliamentarian army won the Battle of Winceby giving them control of Lincoln. Political manoeuvring on both sides now led Charles to negotiate a ceasefire in Ireland, freeing up English troops to fight on the Royalist side, while Parliament offered concessions to the Scots in return for aid and assistance.

Parliament won at Marston Moor in 1644, gaining York with the help of the Scots. Cromwell's conduct in this battle was decisive, and marked him out as a potential political as well as a military leader. The defeat at the Battle of Lostwithiel in Cornwall, however, was a serious reverse for Parliament in the south-west of England.

In 1645 Parliament reorganized its main forces into the New Model Army, under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, with Cromwell as his second-in-command and Lieutenant-General of Horse. In two decisive engagements, the Battle of Naseby on June 14 and at Langport on July 10, Charles's armies were effectively destroyed.

Charles was ransomed by Parliament and held captive at Holdenby House whilst Parliament drew up plans. In the meantime, Parliament began to demobilize and disband the army. The army was unhappy about issues such as arrears of pay and living conditions and resisted the disbandment. Eventually the army kidnapped Charles in an attempt to negotiate using their hostage as a bargaining piece. He spent three months at Hampton Court Palace, before escaping to the Isle of Wight, where he was recaptured and imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Increasingly concerned, the army marched to London in August 1647 and debated proposals of their own at Putney.

A series of royalist rebellions and a Scottish invasion in July 1648 took place. All were defeated by the now powerful standing army. This betrayal by Charles caused Parliament to debate whether Charles should be returned to power at all. Those who still supported Charles's place on the throne tried once more to negotiate with him. Unpaid parliamentarian troops in Wales changed sides; the revolt was firmly put down by Cromwell.

Furious that Parliament were still countenancing Charles as a ruler, the army marched on parliament and conducted "Pride's Purge" (named after the commanding officer of the operation, Thomas Pride). 45 Members of Parliament (MPs) were arrested; 146 were kept out of parliament. Only 75 were allowed in, and then only at the army's bidding. This Rump Parliament was ordered to set up a high court of justice in order to try Charles I for treason in the name of the people of England.

Not all resistance had yet died out. Charles II was crowned in Scotland, claiming that the throne was rightfully his. Cromwell beat the Scottish Royalists at Dunbar on September 3, 1650, but was unable to prevent Charles from marching deep into England. Cromwell finally engaged the new king at Worcester on September 3, 1651, and beat him. Charles II fled abroad, ending the civil wars. The Commonwealth of England was then established, with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of England.

The victory made him very unpopular in Scotland and Ireland which, as nominally independent nations, were effectively conquered by English forces. In particular, Cromwell's suppression of the Royalists in Ireland during 1649 still has a strong resonance for many Irish people. The massacre of nearly 3,500 people in Drogheda after its capture -- comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including civilians, prisoners, and Catholic priests -- is one of the historical memories that has driven Irish-English and Catholic-Protestant strife during the last three centuries.

The wars left Britain as the only country in Europe without a monarch. In the wake of victory many of the ideals, and many of the idealists, were set aside. England, and later all of Britain, was ruled by the republican government of the Commonwealth of England during 1649 - 1653 and 1659 - 1660. Between the two periods, and due to infighting amongst various factions in parliament, Oliver Cromwell ruled over The Protectorate as Lord Protector, effectively a military dictator, until his death.

While the monarchy was subsequently restored, the civil wars effectively set Britain on course to become a parliamentary democracy, and help it avoid the later European republican movements that followed Napoleon's victory in 18th century France. Specifically, future monarchs became wary of pushing Parliament too hard, while in 1662 Parliament's factions became political parties (later becoming the Tories and Whigs) with competing views and the ability to influence decisions of the monarch.

Whigs explained the Civil War as the result of a centuries-long struggle between Parliament, especially the House of Commons, and the monarchy. Parliament fought to defend the traditional rights of Englishmen, while the monarchy attempted on every occasion to expand its right to dictate law arbitrarily. The most important Whig historian, S.R. Gardiner, popularized the idea that the civil war could be described as the 'Puritan Revolution' which challenged the repressive nature of the Stuart church and paved the way for the religious toleration of the restoration. Puritanism, in this view, was the natural ally of a people seeking to preserve their traditional rights against the arbitrary power of the monarchy.

The Marxist school of thought, which became popular in the 1940s, interpreted the Civil War as a bourgeois revolution. In the words of Christopher Hill, "the Civil War was a class war." On the side of reaction was the landed aristocracy and its ally, the established church. On the other side were (again, according to Hill) "the trading and industrial classes in town and countryside, to the yeomen and progressive gentry, and to wider masses of the population whenever they were able by free discussion to understand what the struggle was really about." The Civil War was the point in English history at which the wealthy middle classes, already a powerful force in society, liquidated the outmoded medieval system of English government. Like the Whigs, the Marxists found a place for the role of religion in their account. Puritanism was a moral system that ideally suited the bourgeois class, and so the Marxists idenitified puritans as inherently bourgeois.

Beginning in the 1970s, a new generation of historians began mounting challenges to the Marxist and Whig theories. This began with the publication in 1973 of the anthology "The Origins of the English Civil War" (edited by Conrad Russell). These historians disliked the way that Marxists and Whigs explained the Civil War in terms of long-term trends in English society. The new historians called for, and began producing, studies which focussed on the minute particulars of the years immediately preceding the war, thus returning in some ways to the sort of contingency based historiography of Clarendon's famous contemporary history of the civil war. As a result, they have demonstrated that the pattern of allegiances in the war did not fit the theories of Whig and Marxist historians. Puritans, for example, did not necessarily ally themselves with Parliamentarians, and many of them were not bourgeois; many bourgeois fought on the side of the King; many landed aristocrats supported Parliament.

The new generation of historians (who are commonly called 'Revisionists') have discredited large sections of the Whig and Marxist interpretations of the war. They have not, however, supplied a single coherent explanation of their own. Revisionism is a set of scholarly principles rather than a school of thought.

Domestic Cup Competitions

The FA Cup is the principal domestic cup competition, and is open to clubs of all levels. The winners qualify for the following season's UEFA Cup. The League Cup is open only to Premiership and Football League teams, and also provides a route into European play. The Community Shield (formerly the Charity Shield) is an annual match between the Premiership champions and the FA Cup winners. There are also competitions restricted to lower-division clubs: the Football League Trophy (Associate Members' Cup) for members of the Second and Third Divisions, the FA Trophy for semi-professional non-league clubs, and the FA Vase for lower-ranking non-league clubs.

• Arsenal F.C (1919;1904)
• Aston Villa F.C (1988;1888)
• Birmingham City F.C (2002;1894)
• Blackburn Rovers F.C (2001;1888)
• Bolton Wanderers F.C (2001;1888)
• Charlton Athletic F.C (2000;1936)
• Chelsea F.C (1989;1907)
• Everton F.C (1954;1888)
• Fulham F.C (2001;1949)
• Leeds United F.C (1990;1924)
• Leicester City F.C (2003;1908)
• Liverpool F.C (1962;1894)
• Manchester City F.C (2002;1899)
• Manchester United F.C (1975;1892)
• Middlesbrough F.C (1988;1902)
• Newcastle United F.C (1993;1898)
• Portsmouth F.C (2003;1927)
• Southampton F.C (1978;1966)
• Tottenham Hotspur F.C (1978;1909)
• Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C (2003;1888)

First Division Teams

• Bradford City F.C
• Burnley F.C
• Cardiff City F.C
• Coventry City F.C
• Crewe Alexandra F.C
• Crystal Palace F.C
• Derby County F.C
• Gillingham F.C
• Ipswich Town F.C
• Millwall F.C
• Norwich City F.C
• Nottingham Forest F.C
• Preston North End F.C
• Reading F.C
• Rotherham United F.C
• Sheffield United F.C
• Stoke City F.C
• Sunderland A.F.C
• Walsall F.C
• Watford F.C
• West Bromwich Albion F.C
• West Ham United F.C
• Wigan Athletic F.C
• Wimbledon F.C

Second Division Teams

• Barnsley F.C
• Blackpool F.C
• AFC Bournemouth
• Brentford F.C
• Brighton and Hove Albion F.C
• Bristol City F.C
• Chesterfield F.C
• Colchester United F.C
• Grimsby Town F.C
• Hartlepool United F.C
• Luton Town F.C
• Notts County F.C
• Oldham Athletic F.C
• Peterborough United F.C
• Plymouth Argyle F.C
• Port Vale F.C
• Queens Park Rangers F.C
• Rushden and Diamonds F.C
• Sheffield Wednesday F.C
• Stockport County F.C
• Swindon Town F.C
• Tranmere Rovers F.C
• Wrexham F.C
• Wycombe Wanderers F.C

Third Division Teams

• Boston United F.C
• Bristol Rovers F.C
• Bury F.C
• Cambridge United F.C
• Carlisle United F.C
• Cheltenham Town F.C
• Darlington F.C
• Doncaster Rovers F.C
• Huddersfield Town A.F.C
• Hull City F.C
• Kidderminster Harriers F.C
• Leyton Orient F.C
• Lincoln City F.C
• Macclesfield Town F.C
• Mansfield Town F.C
• Northampton Town F.C
• Oxford United F.C
• Rochdale F.C
• Scunthorpe United F.C
• Southend United F.C
• Swansea City F.C
• Torquay United F.C
• Yeovil Town F.C
• York City F.C

Teams relegated from the Third Division to the Conference and not returned

• Barnet F.C
• Chester City F.C
• Exeter City F.C
• Halifax Town F.C
• Hereford United F.C
• Scarborough F.C
• Shrewsbury Town F.C

Other teams no longer with full league status

• Aberdare Athletic F.C
• Accrington Stanley F.C
• Accrington F.C
• Aldershot F.C
• Ashington F.C
• Barrow F.C
• Bootle F.C
• Bradford Park Avenue F.C
• Burton Swifts F.C
• Burton United F.C
• Burton Wanderers F.C
• Darwen F.C
• Durham City F.C
• Gainsborough Trinity F.C
• Gateshead F.C (South Shields F.C)
• Glossop North End F.C
• Leeds City F.C
• Loughborough F.C
• Maidstone United F.C
• Merthyr Town F.C
• Middlesbrough Ironopolis F.C
• Nelson F.C
• New Brighton F.C
• New Brighton Tower F.C
• Newport County F.C
• Northwich Victoria F.C
• Southport F.C
• Stalybridge Celtic F.C
• Thames Association F.C
• Wigan Borough F.C
• Workington F.C

Other non-league teams of note

• AFC Wimbledon

External link

English is descended from the language spoken by the Germanic tribes the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes that began populating the British Isles around 500 AD. These invaders pushed the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants out of what is now England into Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland. The various dialects spoken by these Germanic invaders formed what would eventually be called Old English. Old English lasted until 1100, shortly after the Norman conquest.

Middle English was the result of the heavy French influence of the Normans, and lasted from 1100-1500. The most famous surviving work from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. The Great Vowel shift occurred during this period, and English after that major sound change became Modern English.

Modern English began its rise around the time of Shakespeare and its grammar and pronunciation has been essentially the same since that time, with the most important changes being in the large increase of vocabulary. Some scholars divide early modern English and late Modern English at around 1800, in concert with British conquest of much of the rest of the world, as the influence of native languages affected English enormously.

After Scots and Frisian, the next closest relative is the modern Low Saxon language of the eastern Netherlands and northern Germany. Other less closely related living languages include Dutch, Afrikaans, and German. Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker, as English absorbed a tremendous amount of vocabulary from French after the Norman conquest.

Geographic distribution

English is the first language in Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana, Jamaica, New Zealand, Antigua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

English is also one of the primary languages of Belize (with Spanish), Canada (with French), Cameroon (with French and African languages), Dominica, St. Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (with French Creole), the Federated States of Micronesia, Ireland (with Irish), Liberia (with African languages), Singapore and South Africa (with Afrikaans and other African languages).

It is an official language, but not native, in Fiji, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is the most commonly used unofficial language of Israel.

English is also the language most often studied as a foreign language in Europe (32.6%) and Japan, followed by French, German and Spanish.

• American English
• Australian English
• British English
• Canadian English
• Caribbean English
• Hiberno-English
• Indian English
• Jamaican English
• Newfoundland English
• New Zealand English
• Pakistani English
• South African English
• Singapore English - sometimes called Singlish
• Malaysian English - sometimes called Manglish

These varieties may, in most cases, contain several subvarieties, such as Cockney within British English and African American Vernacular English (AAVE) (aka Ebonics, spoken among some African-Americans).

Some people dispute the staus of Scots as a closely related separate language from English and consider it a group of English dialects. Scots has a long tradition as a separate written and spoken language. Pronunciation, grammar and lexis differ, sometimes substantially, from other varieties of English.

Claims that Ebonics is a separate language are extremely debatable.

Due to its wide use as a second language, English is spoken with many different accents, which may identify the speaker's native language. For some distinctive characteristics of certain accents, see how to tell the origin of an accent.

Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of 1500 words.

	Labial	Labio-dental	(Inter)Dental	Alveolar	Alveo-palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p b			t d		k g
Fricative		f v	T D	s z	S Z	x¹	h
Affricate					tS dZ
Approximant				l	r
Semi-vowel	w W²				j
Nasal	m			n		N

1. This is a velar fricative and is found only in the Scots dialect and Scots/Gaelic or German loanwords such as loch (`lax) and reich (raix).
2. Voiceless w (/W/) is found in Scottish, upper-class British and some eastern United States accents.
3. /N/ is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some British accents, appearing only before /g/.
4. Some AAVE speakers do not contrast /d/ and /D/.

See also List of Archaic English Words and Their Modern Equivalents, List of words commonly mispronounced, rhotic, singular they, Received Pronunciation, General American pronunciation, Standard Midwestern pronunciation, non-sexist language

Vocabulary

An English-speaker is often able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: "come" or "arrive"; "sight" or "vision"; "freedom" or "liberty". The richness of the language is that such synonyms have sightly different meanings, enabling the language to be used in a very flexible way to express fine variations or shades of thought.

In everyday speech the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If one wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will invariably be chosen. A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more serious speech and writing, such as a courtroom or an encyclopedia article.

English is noted for the vast size of its active vocabulary and its fluidity. English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and imports new words which often come into common usage. In addition, slang provides new meanings for old words. In fact this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage. See also sociolinguistics.

English includes some words which can be written with accent marks. These words have been imported from other languages. But it is increasingly rare for writers of English to actually use the accent marks for common words, even in very formal writing, to the point where actually writing the accent may be interpreted as a sign of pretension.

Some examples: à la carte, ångström, appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac, café, cliché, crème, crêpe, derrière, éclair, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, führer, maté, né(e), papier-mâché, passé, piñata, piñón, protégé, raison d'être, résumé, risqué, sauté, séance, vis-à-vis, voilà.

Some words such as "rôle" and "hôtel" were first seen with accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accent is almost never used. The words were considered very French borrowings when first used in English, even accused by some of being foreign phrases used where English alternatives would suffice, but today their French origin is largely forgotten. The accent on "élite" has disappeared most of the time by today, but Time Magazine still uses it.

It is also possible to use a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break, but again this is often left out. Examples: coöperate, daïs, naïve, noël, reëlect.

Written accents are also used occasionally in poetry and scripts for dramatic performances to indicate that a certain normally unstressed syllable in a word should be stressed for dramatic effect, or to keep with the meter of the poetry. This use is frequently seen in archaic and pseudoarchaic writings with the -ed suffix, to indicate that the "e" should be fully pronounced: i.e. "cursèd".

In certain older texts (typically in British English), the use of ligatures is common in words such as archæology, œsophagus, and encyclopædia.

• The Oxford Companion to the English Language edited by Tom McArthur

External links

See also

Renaissance Poetry

The English renaissance followed the continental renaissance by several hundred years, but when it finally arrived, it was with a vengeance. This period saw the flowering especially of English drama, but reawakened an interest in the works of classical antiquity, again including Virgil, as well as a number of Greek and Latin philosophers.

• Philip Sydney
• John Donne
• Ben Jonson
• George Herbert
• Andrew Marvell
• William Shakespeare

Restoration and 18th century

• John Dryden
• Alexander Pope
• Thomas Gray
• William Cowper

The Romantic Age

In poetry, the Romantic movement emphasized the creative expression of the individual and the need to find and formulate new forms of expression. William Wordsworth, whose key work is The Prelude, was perhaps the prime mover in these endeavors for a number of years. In this, he was closely rivalled by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was first Wordsworth's mentor but soon his friend and close companion. Together, the two published Lyrical Ballads, which attempted to employ rustic language to typify its subject of common, everyday occurrences. Nevertheless, the collection opened with Coleridge's almost-epic, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

• William Blake
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• William Wordsworth
• Lord Byron
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• John Keats

Victorian Poetry

• Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Robert Browning
• Matthew Arnold
• Christina Rossetti
• Gerard Manley Hopkins

World War I

• Rupert Brooke
• Isaac Rosenberg
• Siegfried Sassoon
• Edward Thomas
• Wilfred Owen

Modern Poets

• Thomas Hardy
• William Butler Yeats
• T.S. Eliot
• Ezra Pound
• Dylan Thomas
• Philip Larkin
• Seamus Heaney
• Ted Hughes

• The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English by Ian Hamilton

Geography

Demographics

• Kingdom of England
• Kingdom of Scotland
• Principality of Wales

Territories elsewhere in the archipilego

• Ireland
  • Republic of Ireland
  • Northern Ireland
• Isle of Man

• History of Britain
• British Empire
• The Commonwealth of Nations formerly called The British Commonwealth
• List of British monarchs
• British colonialism
• Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
• British Prime Minister
• 1536 Act of Union merging Kingdom of England and Principality of Wales
• 1707 Act of Union merging Scotland and England to form Great Britain
• 1801 Act of Union merging Great Britain and Ireland to form the United Kingdom
• Anglo-Irish Treaty facilitating the Irish Free State's exit from the United Kingdom
• SS Great Britain,
• List of United Kingdom topics

External links

• 8000-7000 BC Mesolithic Period begins
• 2500 BC Neolithic Period begins
• 1600 BC Bronze Age begins
• 900 BC Immigration of Celtic-speaking peoples
• 400 BC Early Iron Age

In classic Roman style, the Romans constructed a highly effective internal infrastructure to cement their military occupation, building long, straight roads the length and breadth of the country, most of which centred on London. For a deeper account of the Roman occupation of Britain, see Roman Britain. See also the Celtic tribes in the British Isles.

The indigenous, mostly Celtic population were suppressed with customary Roman efficiency, although numerous, and often extremely bloody, uprisings occurred all through their occupation, the most notable that of the Iceni (and other tribes) led by Boudicca, or "Boadicea," in AD 61. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 4th Century AD their hold may best be described as tenuous.

See also:

• Hengest (Saxon leader, arrived in England in 449, died 488)
• Dark Ages
• Anglo-Saxon Kings

The Venerable Bede (c672 - 735) - Offa (reign 757 - 796) - Alfred the Great (848 - 900)

Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England. Starting with plundering raids, the Vikings later began to settle in England and trade. There are many traces of Vikings in England today, for instance many words in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing. One Viking settlement was in York (which they called Jorvik).

It was not until 936, however, that Athelstan was able to evict the Cornish from Exeter, and drew a line at the extent of his kingdom, Wessex, at the River Tamar.

See also:

• Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century, writer of History of the Kings of Britain stretching from 1100 BC to AD 689)

Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (on account of his education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.

The disastrous and incompetent reign of Stephen (1135 - 1154) was to see a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as England descended inexorably into civil war and lawlessness. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders on those borders, he handed over large tracts of land. Moreover, his conflicts with his cousin, the Empress Maud, whom he had earlier promised recognition as heir, were his undoing: She bided her time in France and, in the autumn of 1139, invaded (with her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester).

Stephen was captured, and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, a year after reaching an accommodation with Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) in which peace between them was guaranteed on the condition that the throne would be his by succession.

The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism.

The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1349 and killed perhaps up to a third of the population. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Scots and the French, with the principal notable battles being the Battle of Crécy and the Battle of Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owen Glendower, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to become Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.

Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people with Royal blood in their veins. Because land was equivalent to power in these days, this meant that these powerful men could now try and make good their claim to the Crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV lay the seeds for what was to come. In the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, things came to a head because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. Unable to control the feuding nobles, he allowed outright civil war to break out. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Edward IV went a little way to restoring this power but the spadework was generally done by Henry VII

The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between the then King Charles I and Parliament. The Parliamentarian army was commanded by Oliver Cromwell, which after much bloodshed and destruction, was ultimately victorious. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles I led to his execution by beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London.

In 1664/65 England was swept by a visitation of the Great Plague, and then, in 1666, London, the timbered capital city of England, was swept by fire, the Great Fire of London, which raged for 5 days, destroying c. 15,000 buildings.

In the late 1600s, the Dutch Protestant William of Orange, William III replaced the Catholic King James II. This became known as the Glorious Revolution or 'Bloodless Revolution'. However, in Scotland and Ireland, Catholics loyal to James II were not so content, and a series of bloody uprisings resulted. These Jacobite Rebellions continued until the mid-18th century. NB: After the 1707 Act of Union, the histories of Britain and England are largely overlapping entities. Since England was the dominant hegemony, it is assumed for the purposes of this article that the two are largely coterminous.

The union of Scotland with England, under the Act of Union, saw Scotland 'united' with England and Wales (Wales had already been assimilated in the 1536 Act of Union by Henry VIII). This was no process of harmonisation, for Scotland had effectively capitulated to English economic pressure after the failure of the Darién scheme. This process was lubricated in the Scottish parliament by the self-interested political manoeuverings of the English puppets, John Campbell, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry.

The transition to industrialisation was not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom saw their livelihoods threatened by the process. Of these, some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as "Luddites". This view of the Luddite history should also be set against alternative views, such as that of E. P. Thompson.

During the early 1800s, the working classes began to find a voice; concentrations of industry led more or less inevitably to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist. The revolutions which spread like wildfire throughout mainland Europe during the 1840s did not occur in England, and Queen Victoria's reign was largely one of consensus, despite huge disparities in living standards between the few rich and the multitudinous poor.

The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) as a separate nation, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom; its official name became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

See also

• Bretwalda
• Kings & Queens - Royal family trees
• British politics
• Timeline of English history
• Population of England - historical estimates
• History of Britain
• History of London
• History of Scotland
• History of Ireland
• History of Wales
• UK topics
• Commonwealth

External Links

Such was the influence of French that, had nature not intervened, English may not have survived as a separate language. However, in 14th century the Black Death killed so many of those in positions of power that many English speakers from the working classes rose to fill such positions, so displacing many of the French speakers. In the 1362, English replaced French as the language of commerce and the courts, and the Lord Chancellor even addressed Parliament in English. However it was not until the coronation of Henry IV in 1399 that an English monarch made an address in English, after 333 years of French being spoken by the monarchy.

In 1755 Samuel Johnson published the first significant English dictionary.

Middle English

Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunterbury

 Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
 And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
 Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
 Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
 The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
 Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
 And smale foweles maken melodye,
 That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
 (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

Early modern English

   Iago: Though in the trade of Warre I haue slaine men,
         Yet do I hold it very stuffe o'th' conscience 
         To do no contriu'd Murder: I lacke Iniquitie 
         Sometime to do me seruice. Nine, or ten times
         I had thought t'haue yerk'd him here vnder the Ribbes.

Othello: 'Tis better as it is.

Modern English

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to 
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which
the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to the separation.

See Also

Archaeologists and Anthropologists

• Mick Aston
• Richard Atkinson
• Churchill Babington
• Howard Carter
• Grahame Clark
• David Clarke
• Barry Cunliffe
• Glyn Daniel
• John Disney, (1779-1857), barrister and archaeologist
• E. E. Evans-Pritchard, (1902-1973), social anthropologist
• Cyril Fox
• Dorothy Garrod
• William Greenwell
• Kathleen Kenyon
• John Leland, (1502-1552), antiquary
• John Lubbock, (1834-1913), banker, politician, naturalist and archaeologist
• John Robert Mortimer
• Colin Renfrew, (born 1937), archaeologist
• E.B. Tylor, (1832-1917), anthropologist
• Mortimer Wheeler

Architects

• George Basevi
• Nicholas Hawksmoor, (1661-1736), architect
• Inigo Jones, (1573-1652), architect
• Edwin Lutyens, (1869-1944), architect
• William Morris, (1834-1896), architect, author
• August Pugin, (1812-1852), architect
• Christopher Wren, (1632-1723), architect

Artists

• William Blake, (1757-1827), painter, poet
• Thomas Gainsborough, (1727-1788), painter
• Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist
• David Hockney, (1937-), painter
• Henry Moore, (1898-1986), sculptor
• Sir Joshua Reynolds, artist
• Flora Twort, (1893-1985)

Criminals

• Myra Hindley
• Peter Sutcliffe

Economists

• William Beveridge, (1879-1963), economist and social reformer
• John Maynard Keynes, (1883-1946), economist
• Thomas Malthus, (1766-1834), demographer
• Alfred Marshall, (1842-1924), economist
• John Stuart Mill, (1806-1873), economist, philosopher

Engineers

• Benjamin Baker, (1840-1907), engineer
• Henry Bessemer, (1813-1898), engineer
• James Brindley, (1716-1772), engineer
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel, (1806-1859), engineer
• Sidney Camm, engineer
• William Tierney Clark, (1783-1852), civil engineer
• Geoffrey de Havilland, (1882 - 1965), aeronautical engineer
• John Ambrose Fleming, (1848-1945), electrical engineer
• R.J. Mitchell, (1895-1937), aeronautical engineer
• Samuel Morton Peto, (1809-1889), railways, harbours
• Henry Royce, (1863-1933), engineer
• Nevil Shute, (1899-1960), aeronautical engineer and author
• George Stephenson, (1781-1848), engineer
• Richard Trevithick, (1771-1833), engineer
• Barnes Wallis, (1887-1978), engineer
• Frank Whittle, (1907-1996), co-inventor of the jet engine
• Joseph Whitworth, (1803-1887), engineer

Entrepreneurs

• Richard Branson, (born 1950)
• Abraham Darby, (c. 1678-1717), ironmaster
• William Richard Morris, (Lord Nuffield), (1877-1963)
• Josiah Wedgwood, (1730-1795), industrialist

Filmmakers

• Roy Boulting

Humourists

• John Cleese
• Ben Elton
• Michael Palin

Inventors

• Christopher Cockerell, (1910-1999), inventor of the hovercraft
• Abraham Darby, (c. 1678-1717), ironmaster
• James Hargreaves, (1720-1778), weaver and inventor
• John Harrison, (1693-1776), clockmaker
• Rowland Hill, (1795-1879), inventor of the modern postal service
• Thomas Newcomen, (1664-1729), inventor
• Isaac Newton, (1642-1727), founder of modern physics, inventor of the reflector telescope
• James Starley, (1831-1881), bicycle pioneer
• George Stephenson, (1781-1848), engineer
• Charles Wheatstone, (1802-1975), inventor
• Frank Whittle, (1907-1996), co-inventor of the jet engine

Military men and women

• Robert Baden-Powell, (1857-1941), soldier
• Douglas Bader, (1910-1982), fighter pilot
• Robert Blake, (1599 - 1657), reforming Royal Navy Admiral
• Rupert Brooke, (1887-1925), poet
• Winston Churchill, (1874-1965), British prime minister
• Francis Drake, (1540-1596), sailor
• Arthur Harris, (1892-1984), airman
• John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, (1650-1722)
• Bernard Montgomery, (1887-1976), soldier
• Louis Mountbatten, (1900-1979), sailor
• Horatio Nelson, (1758-1805), sailor, Admiral
• Siegfried Sassoon, (1886-1967), war poet
• Arthur Wellesley, (1769-1852), soldier

Monarchs

• Queen Anne, (1665-1714), also Queen of Scotland, then Queen of Great Britain after 1707
• King Charles II, (1660-1685), also King of Scotland
• King Edward I, (1272-1307), English monarch
• King Edward III, (1327-1377), English monarch
• King Edward IV, (1461-1470 and 1471-1483), English monarch
• King Edward V, (1470-1483?), English monarch
• King Edward VI, (1547-1553), first English Protestant monarch
• King Edward VII, (1841-1910)
• King Edward VIII, (1894-1972), (formerly Edward VIII)
• Queen Elizabeth I, (1558-1603), Protestant queen and first Supreme Governor of the Church of England
• Queen Elizabeth II, (born 1926), (later Queen Elizabeth II)
• King George III, (1801-1820), English, British monarch
• King George IV, (1762-1830)
• King George V, (1910-1936), English, British monarch
• King George VI, (1895-1952), of England
• King Henry III, (1207-1272), English monarch
• King Henry IV, (1367-1413), English monarch
• King Henry VI, (1421-1471), English monarch
• King Henry VIII, (1491-1547), separated English Catholicism from link with the Roman Catholic Church
• King James II, (1685-1688), also King James VII of Scotland
• Queen Mary I, (1553-1558), Roman Catholic queen
• Queen Mary II, (1662-1694)
• Queen Victoria, (1819-1901)

Musicians

• Edward Elgar, (1857-1934), composer

Philosophers

• Jeremy Bentham, (1748-1832), philosopher
• Robert Boyle, (1627-1691), philosopher and physicist
• Thomas Hobbes, (1588-1679), philosopher
• John Locke, (1632-1704), philosopher
• John Stuart Mill, (1806-1873), economist, philosopher
• William of Ockham (c. 1285-1349), philosopher
• Bertrand Russell, (1872-1970), philosopher
• William Whewell, (1794-1866), philosopher
• Alfred North Whitehead, (1861-1947), mathematician

Politicians

• Henry Addington
• Herbert Henry Asquith, (1852-1928)
• Clement Attlee, (1883-1967), British prime minister
• Stanley Baldwin, British prime minister
• Margaret Bondfield
• James Callaghan
• George Canning
• William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire
• William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland
• Joseph Chamberlain, (1836-1914)
• Neville Chamberlain, (1869-1940), British prime minister
• Winston Churchill, (1874-1965), British prime minister
• Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington
• Archibald Dalzel, (1740-1811), Governor of the Gold Coast
• Benjamin Disraeli, (1804-1881), British prime minister
• Alec Douglas-Home
• Anthony Eden, (1897-1977), British prime minister
• Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
• William Ewart Gladstone, (1809-1898), British prime minister
• Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton
• Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
• Edward Heath
• Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
• David Lloyd George
• George Grenville
• William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Lord Grenville
• William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
• John Lubbock, (1834-1913), banker, politician, naturalist and archaeologist
• Harold Macmillan, British prime minister
• John Major, (born 1943), British prime minister
• Frederick North, Lord North
• Sir Robert Peel
• Henry Pelham
• Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle
• Spencer Perceval
• William Pitt the Elder, (1708-1778), 1st Earl of Chatham
• William Pitt the Younger, (1759-1806)
• Cecil Rhodes, (1853-1902), imperialist
• Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich
• Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham
• Lord Russell
• Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
• Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
• Margaret Thatcher, (born 1925), British prime minister
• Sir Robert Walpole
• Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham
• Arthur Wellesley, (1769-1852), soldier
• William Wilberforce, (1759-1833), abolitionist
• Henry Willink, (1894-1973), politician
• Harold Wilson, (1916-1995), Labour prime minister of the UK

Scientists

• Arthur Aikin, (1773-1854), chemist and mineralogist
• Charles Babbage, (1791-1871), mathematician
• Joseph Banks, (1743-1820), naturalist
• Thomas Bayes, (c. 1702-1761), mathematician
• Tim Berners-Lee, (born 1955), computer scientist
• George Boole, (1815-1864), mathematician
• Robert Boyle, (1627-1691), philosopher and physicist
• Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, (1897-1974), physicist
• Isaac Barrow, (1630-1677), mathematician
• Henry Cavendish, (1731-1810), scientist
• Sir George Cayley, (1773-1857), polymath and aviator
• Francis Crick, (born 1916), molecular biologist
• John Dalton, (1766-1844), chemist and physicist
• Charles Darwin, (1809-1882), Founder of The Theory of Evolution
• Humphry Davy, (1778-1829), chemist
• Richard Dawkins, (born 1941), biologist
• Horace Donisthorpe (1870-1951), entomologist, myrmecologist and coleopterist
• Paul Dirac, (1902-1984), physicist
• Arthur Eddington, (1882-1944), physicist
• Michael Faraday, (1791-1867), scientist
• Ronald Fisher, (1890-1962), geneticist and statistician
• Rosalind Franklin, (1920-1958), molecular biologist
• J. B. S. Haldane, (1892-1964), geneticist
• Stephen Hawking, (born 1942), cosmologist
• Oliver Heaviside, (1850-1925), physicist
• C. A. R. Hoare, computer scientist
• Robert Hooke, (1635-1703), scientist
• John Herschel, (1792-1871), mathematician and astronomer
• Edward Jenner, (1749-1823), doctor
• R. V. Jones, (1911-1997), physicist
• James Prescott Joule, (1818-1889), physicist
• Joseph Lister, (1827-1912), surgeon
• Bernard Lovell, astronomer
• James Lovelock, (born 1919), scientist
• Martin Lowry, (1874-1936), chemist
• John William Lubbock, (1803-1865), banker, mathematician and astronomer
• Sir Charles Lyell, (1797-1875), geologist
• John Maynard Smith, geneticist
• Desmond Morris, (born 1928), zoologist
• Roger Needham, (1935-2003), computer scientist
• Isaac Newton, (1642-1727), founder of modern physics, last of the alchemists
• Roger Penrose, (born 1931), cosmologist
• Joseph Priestley, (1733-1804), chemist
• Adam Sedgwick, (1785-1873), geologist
• Joseph Wilson Swan, (1828-1914), physicist and chemist
• J. J. Thomson, (1856-1940), physicist
• Henry Tizard, scientist
• Alan Turing, (1912-1954), mathematician
• Alfred Russel Wallace, (1823-1913), naturalist
• Robert Watson-Watt, (1892-1973), scientist
• Alfred North Whitehead, (1861-1947), mathematician
• Maurice Wilkes, (born 1913), computer scientist
• James Wilkinson, (1919-1986), mathematician
• William Hyde Wollaston, (1766-1828), chemist
• Thomas Young, (1773-1829), scientist

Sportsmen/sportswomen

• Roger Bannister, first sub-four-minute miler
• David Beckham, (born 1975), soccer player
• Don Cockell, heavy weight boxer
• James Figg Boxing's first world champion
• Bob Fitzsimmons, (1863-1917), Boxing's first world champion in three divisions.
• Naseem Hamed world champion boxer
• Ricky Hatton highly touted boxing prospect
• Lennox Lewis, (born 1965), world champion boxer
• George Mallory, mountaineer
• Alan Minter, (born 1951), world champion boxer
• Michael Owen, (born 1979), soccer player
• Alan Shearer soccer player
• Randolph Turpin, (1928-1966), middleweight boxer

Writers

• Matthew Arnold, (1822-1888), poet
• David Attenborough, (born 1926), naturalist and broadcaster
• W. H. Auden, (1907-1973), poet
• Jane Austen, (1775-1817), novelist
• William Blake, (1757-1827), painter, poet
• Anne Bronte, (1820-1849), author
• Charlotte Bronte, (1816-1855), author
• Emily Bronte, (1818-1848), author
• Rupert Brooke, (1887-1925), poet
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning, (1806-1861), poet
• Robert Browning, (1812-1889), poet
• George Gordon, Lord Byron
• Lewis Carroll, (1832-1898), author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Winston Churchill, (1874-1965), British prime minister, author
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (1772-1834), poet
• William Congreve, (1670-1729), poet
• Charles Dickens, (1812-1870), author
• John Dryden, (1631-1700), poet
• George Eliot, (1819-1880), (Mary Ann Evans)
• E.M. Forster, (1879-1970), author
• Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist
• Robert Graves, (1895-1985), author
• Thomas Gray, (1716-1771), poet
• Thomas Hardy, (1840-1928), poet
• William Hazlitt, (1778-1830)
• Leigh Hunt, (1784-1859), poet
• Aldous Huxley, (1884-1963), writer
• Thomas Henry Huxley, (1825-1895), coiner of the term agnosticism
• Samuel Johnson, (1709-1784), poet
• Ben Jonson, (1573-1637), poet
• D.H. Lawrence, (1885-1930), poet
• Thomas Malory, (c. 1430-c. 1471), author of Le Morte D'Arthur
• Christopher Marlowe, (1564-1593), playwright
• John Milton, (1608-1674), poet
• William Morris, (1834-1896), architect, author
• George Orwell, (1903-1950), (Eric Blair), journalist and novelist
• Wilfred Owen, (1893-1918), war poet
• Samuel Pepys, (1633-1703), diarist and public official in 17th century England
• Alexander Pope, (1688-1744), poet
• Philip Pullman, (born 1946), author
• Christina Rossetti, (1830-1894), poet
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti, (1828-1882), poet
• John Ruskin, (1819-1900)
• Siegfried Sassoon, (1886-1967), war poet
• William Shakespeare, (c. 1564-1616), poet
• Mary Shelley, (1797-1851), author
• Percy Bysshe Shelley, (1792-1822), poet
• Nevil Shute, (1899-1960), aeronautical engineer and author
• Robert Southey, (1774-1843), Poet Laureate 1813
• Algernon Swinburne, (1837-1909), poet
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Anthony Trollope, (1815-1882), novellist
• John Webster, (died 1630), poet
• Gilbert White, (1720-1795)
• Mary Wollstonecraft, (1759-1797), pioneer feminist known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
• Virginia Woolf, (1882-1941), author and feminist.
• William Wordsworth, (1770-1850), Romantic poet

Other Notables

• David Attenborough, (born 1926), naturalist and broadcaster
• Robert Blake, (1599 - 1657), reforming Royal Navy Admiral
• William Camden, (1551-1623), historian
• George Canning, (1770-1827)
• William Caxton, (c. 1422-c. 1491), printer
• James Cook, (1728-1779), British explorer
• Grace Darling, (1815-1842), heroine
• Thomas de Quincey
• Edward Gibbon, (1737-1794), historian
• Gildas, (c. 510 - c.570), monk
• William Godwin, (1756-1836)
• Ebenezer Howard, (1850-1928), urban planner
• Florence Nightingale, (1820-1910), nurse
• John Reith, (1889-1971), broadcaster
• John Speed, (1542-1629), historian and cartographer
• William Wakefield, (1801-1848), founder of Wellington, New Zealand
• William Wilberforce, (1759-1833), abolitionist

• Thomas Paine, (1737-1809)

• A small amount that you have is worth more than a large amount that is uncertain.

• This is one of Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes. It means: "If a cat may look at a king, I have as much right to take an interest in what you are doing. Are you so important that I can't even look at you?"

• Attributed to Winston Churchill. It's easier to turn falsehood loose than correct it everywhere it runs to.

• Attributed to Ben Franklin; Poor Richard's Almanac.

• From the Latin, mens sana in corpore sano.

• Latin: Verbum sapienti saepet.

• From the Code of Hammurabi?

• We feel more affection for relatives and friends when we are parted from them.

• From the Gospel of Matthew

• This has a parallel in Chaucer, Murder will out.

• Negative form of an affirmative? The affirmative form also exists.

• A paraphrase on Shakespeare

• From the Gospel of Matthew.

• Based on a Christian New Testament passage.

• From the Robert Frost poem possibly titled Mending Fences.

H

• From the Christian New Testament

• From the Latin, Inter caecos regnat luscus.

• Here 'talks' means 'carries weight', in the sense that it is influential. As a matter of fact, it means it is possible to do much more with money than without.

• Christian New Testament

• Christian New Testament

• This may be attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli

• It means we are never contented with what we have. When we satisfy one want, it merely makes us aware of another. And so it goes on.

• This may be Franklin again.

This profoundly changed the English language. This is attributable to the introduction into England not just of a new language, Norman French, but of new political structures which relied upon that language. Although it is possible to overestimate the degree of cultural shock which 1066 represented (especially given the strong Anglo-Norman connections under both Edward and Harold), the removal of the top levels of an English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchy, and their replacement with a French-speaking one, both confirmed the position of French as a language of polite discourse and vernacular literature and removed the standard (Wessex) dialect of Old English and its role in education. Although Old English was by no means as standardised as modern English, its written forms were less subject to broad dialect variations than post-Conquest English.

Even now, after a thousand years, the Norman class-system is still visible in English: the words for common things are derived from Old English, for example: pig, cow, dog sheep farmer house.

The words for things used by the rich and the ruling class are derived from middle French, for example: pork, beef, court, judge, jury, parliament, honor, courage, rich and study.

Archer and fletcher are special cases. Although there is no particular reason why we kept the English version-archer and the French word fletcher has fallen, it is more than likely the archers themselves used the word 'archer' and the generals used the word 'fletcher'.

Even the word for the less wealthy classes came from the mouth of the francophone: poor.

The triplicate vocabulary of English comes from this Norman period. For instance, English has three words meaning roughly "of or relating to a king": kingly from Old English, royal from French and regal from Latin. Each carries its own nuance.

The Old English kingly brings to mind a fabled king; the French royal, the ample pomp of a medieval court; and the Latin regal, the noble expression and manner of a king, an abstract king.

Deeper changes occurred in the grammar. Bit by bit, the wealthy and the government anglicized again, though French remained the dominant language of literature and law for several centuries. The new English didn't look the same as the old. Old English had a complex system of inflectional endings, but these were gradually lost and simplified in the dialects of spoken English, and soon the change spread to its increasingly diverse written forms. This loss of case-endings can again be traced back to the loss of written standards for English, and not just to French-speaking occupation. English remained, after all, the language of the majority, but more a spoken than a written one, and certainly not a literary one until, arguably, the fourteenth century, as the Chancery Standard introduced a greater deal of conformity in English spelling, and writers like Chaucer and Gower began to expand the range and word-stock of the language (largely through French and Latin borrowing) in an attempt to establish it as a medium capable of serious literature.

Construction: Key points

With its simplified case-ending system, Middle English is closer to modern English than its pre-Conquest equivalent. The caveat, of course, is the necessary instability of the term 'Middle English', which encompasses a number of dialects and regions over a 500-year period. Some general principles, though, may be observed.

'r' sounds typically have a light roll.

Generally, all letters in Middle English words are pronounced. (Silent letters in Modern English come from pronunciation shifts but continued spelling conventions.) Therefore 'knight' is pronounced 'k-n-i-g-h-t' (with 'gh' as the 'ch' in German 'nacht' or Scottish 'loch'), not 'nite'.

Final 'e's are pronounced, unstressed - they do not, as in Modern English, affect pronunciation of central vowels. (In Modern English the 'e' changes the short 'i' in 'fin' to a long 'i' in 'fine'. In Middle English f-i-n-e would be pronounced something like 'feene'.) The exception to this is where the next word begins with a vowel, or sometimes an 'i' or an 'h', in which case the final -e elides and is unpronounced. All this is important for making sense of metre in Middle English verse, e.g.

 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
 And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
 To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
        (Chaucer, Canterbury Tales)

The vast differences between Old English and Middle English (and indeed Modern English) have led some to claim English is a glorified creole. See Is Middle English a Pidgin? for a discussion.

• aroha: love, affection
• haere mai: welcome
• ka pai: good; well done
• kai: food
• kia ora: hello
• korero: to chat; to speak in Maori
• puku: belly
• tangi: to mourn; or, a funeral at a marae
• taniwha: legendary sea monster
• tapu: sacred, taboo; to be avoided because of this
• te reo: the tongue; the Maori language
• tohunga: priest, shaman
• turangawaewae: one's own turf
• wairua: spirit
• whakapapa: genealogy, to genealogise

• bach: A small holiday home, often with only one or two rooms and of simple construction. Pronounced "batch".
• chip, punnet or pottle: Depending on the region, the unit by which strawberries and certain other fruit are sold.
• crib: Another word for bach, more commonly used in the south of the South Island.
• eh!: Used for emphasis at the end of a sentence.
• electorate Parliamentary constituency
• flatting sharing a flat (apartment)
• footpath: Pavement or sidewalk.
• footy: Football (usually Rugby Union or League, never soccer).
• OE or Big OE: Overseas Experience; time spent travelling and working overseas, usually in Europe.
• pavlova: A favourite meringue-like dessert made from egg whites, frequently served with cream and kiwifruit.
• pom: English person (mildy derogatory).
• super: old age pension scheme (from superannuation)
• WOF: Warrant of Fitness test on car (similar to British MoT).

Differences from British English

The most noticeable difference in pronunciation is probably the flat "i", so that "six" is pronounced in a way sounding like "sucks". This is a part of the vowel shift that has occurred in New Zealand.

Below; the latter word is how the former word sounds-like to the ears of a non-New Zealander:

• pan --> pen
• pen --> pin
• pin --> pun
• peek --> peck

Dropped L

• New Zealand: pahk the kah dehwn tehwn
• South Africa: pawk the kaw dahwn tahwn

• Cape Town --> guyp-down
• Pretoria --> bri-dorr-ya

• work --> weck
• win --> ween
• car --> kah
• book --> boook
• fast -- fust

Vocabulary

• ag - oh
• baas - boss
• bioscope - cinema, movie theatre (now dated)
• biltong - dried meat, similar to jerky
• boerwors - spicy sausage
• braai - a barbecue, to barbecue
• bakkie - a utility truck, pick-up truck
• doos - idiot (can also mean female genitalia)
• impi - horde of warriors
• ja - yes
• jislaaik! - wow!
• jol - to have fun, to party
• kaffir - very derogatory term for black person
• kak - shit, crap
• kiff - (adj.) cool, neat, great, wonderful
• kugel - Jewish woman, usually affluent
• lekker - nice, good, well, OK
• mealie - millet corn, staple diet
• moffie - male homosexual (derogatory)
• ou (plural ouens) man, guy, bloke
• rand currency, divided in to 100 cents, also used in plural 'ten rand'.
• rooinek (literally 'red neck') derogatory term for English person
• sies - expression of disappointment, annoyance - ag, sies, man
• sadza - Zimbabwean term for mealie
• sarmie - sandwich
• soutpiel - (literally 'salt dick') derogatory term for English-speaking white South African*
• shebeen - illegal drinking establishment in black township
• sommer - for no particular reason, just because
• trek - to move, to wander
• tsotsi - thug, criminal, bandit
• yebo - yes

There are also a few unique constructions in South African English, where common English words take on new meanings:

• ablutions block - outside toilet, washroom also in Australian English
• boney - motorcycle (from the Triumph Bonneville)
• book of life - national identity document
• bunny - loaf of bread filled with curry, speciality of Durban (also bunny chow)
• cafe - grocery shop
• china - mate, pal (from rhyming slang 'china plate'= mate)
• coloured - mixed race
• cool drink - soft drink, fizzy drink
• dam - reservoir
• goose - girl, young woman, girlfriend
• hang - heck, hell (a hang of a lot)
• hey? - eh? is/isn't that so?
• homeland - separate state for black South Africans under apartheid
• howzit - hello, how are you, good morning
• just now - A short time from now
• matric - school certificate
• now now - later on (later than "just now")
• I beg yours? - I beg your pardon?, Sorry?, Please explain? ''also in Australian English
• izzit (is it) - an all purpose exclamative, equivalent to "really?"
• robot - traffic light
• sharp - good, well, OK
• shame! - interjection; used when speaker believes something is unfortunate.
• tackies - sneakers, plimsolls, sports shoes; also car tyres.
• township - urban area for black South Africans under apartheid

Idioms

The influence of Afrikaans accounts for idioms in South African English like "are you coming with?" (are you coming with us?), and the ubiquitous "hey?" instead of "isn't it?", "aren't you"?).

• He's not coming with, hey? He's not coming with us, is he?

• She'll be here just now. She'll be here soon.

• Ja well, no fine. Things are okay, so-so.

• The rand closed at 7,25 [seven comma two five] against the US dollar. The rand closed at 7.25 [seven point two five] against the US dollar.

England has existed as a unified entity since the 10th century. Wales, under English control since the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the 1536 Act of Union. In the 1707 Act of Union, the separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, having shared the same monarch since 1603, agreed to permanent union as the Kingdom of Great Britain. The 1801 Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain merged with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1169 and 1603, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. With the formation of 26 Irish counties into the Irish Free State in 1922, the six remaining Ulster counties remaining part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland, the country was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1927. The nation had two periods of republican rule in the 17th century before reverting to a monarchy in 1660.

The United Kingdom, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing parliamentary democracy and in advancing literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one quarter of the earth's surface. The first half of the 20th century saw the UK's strength seriously depleted in two World Wars. The second half witnessed the dismantling of the Empire and the UK rebuilding itself into a modern and prosperous European nation. The UK is currently weighing the degree of its integration with continental Europe. A member of the EU, it has chosen to defer its participation in Euro Zone owing to internal political considerations. Constitutional reform is also a current issue in the UK. The House of Lords has been subjected to ongoing reforms and National assemblies with varying degrees of power were created in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1999. Further assemblies for the English regions are also under consideration. The British republican movement is also gaining increasing media attention, although general support for monarchy remains high.

The United Kingdom is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations (successor organisation to the former Empire), the European Union and NATO. It is also a permanent member of the UN Security Council and holds a veto power.

See also: Monarchs; history of Britain; history of England; history of Ireland; history of Scotland; history of Wales, UK local history terms

In form, the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy with government, though carried out in the monarch's name, answerable to parliament and through it the electorate. It is governed from its capital, London (although see below). The UK's current monarch and head of state is Queen Elizabeth II who acceded to the throne in 1952 and was crowned in 1953. Today, her role is mainly ceremonial, with the country's real political power being delegated to the Prime Minister.

The United Kingdom is a very centralised state, with London's Westminster Parliament holding responsibility for most of the political affairs of the Kingdom. In recent years however, each of the countries apart from England has been granted its own governmental body responsible in varying degree for some internal matters.

See also:

• Law of the United Kingdom
• Politics of Scotland

Countries, Regions, Counties, Areas and Districts

The United Kingdom is made up of the four countries England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which are in turn made up of the following subdivisions:

• Subdivisions of England, Regions of England
• Council Areas of Scotland
• Unitary Authorities of Wales
• Subdivisions of Northern Ireland

England is divided into nine Government Office Regions - North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, Eastern, Greater London, South East, South West. Each region is made up of Counties and/or Metropolitan Counties and/or unitary authorities, apart from London which consists of London boroughs. There is growing support for the regions to be empowered via democratically elected assemblies - particularly in the northern regions and the West Midlands.

Scotland consists of 32 Council Areas. Wales consists of 22 Unitary Authorities, styled as 10 County Boroughs, 9 Counties, and 3 Cities. Northern Ireland is divided into 24 Districts, 2 Cities, and 6 Counties.

There are also a number of different dependencies belonging to the United Kingdom, see Crown colony.

The Isle of Man and Channel Islands are not legally part of the United Kingdom; they are British crown dependencies, though the United Kingdom is responsible for their external affairs.

The monarchy of the United Kingdom is symbolically shared with 16 other sovereign countries that are known as Commonwealth Realms, although Britain has very little political influence over these independent nations.

Other articles: Cities of the United Kingdom, Towns of the United Kingdom, Local government in England

Most of England consists of rolling terrain, but the country is more mountainous in the north; the dividing line between terrain types is usually identified as the Tees-Exe line. The main rivers are the Thames and the Severn; major cities include London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol and Newcastle upon Tyne. Near Dover, the Channel Tunnel links the United Kingdom with France.

Wales is mostly mountainous, the highest peak being Snowdon, at 1,085 m above sea level. North of the mainland is the island of Anglesey. Main and capital city is Cardiff, located in the south of Wales.

Scotland's geography is varied, with lowlands in the south and east and highlands in the north and west, including Ben Nevis, the UK's highest mountain (1343 m). There are many long and deep sea arms, firths, and lochs. A multitude of islands west and north of Scotland are also included, notably the Hebrides, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. Main cities are Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Northern Ireland, making up the northeastern part of Ireland, is mostly hilly. Main cities are Belfast and Londonderry.

The United Kingdom, a leading trading power and financial centre, has an essentially capitalist economy, one of the largest of Western Europe. Over the past two decades the government has greatly reduced public ownership by means of privatization programmes, and has contained the growth of the Welfare State. Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanised, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with only 1% of the labour force. The UK has large coal, natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial nation. Services, particularly banking, insurance, and business services, account for by far the largest proportion of GDP while industry continues to decline in importance.

The Blair government has put off the question of participation in the Euro system, citing five economic tests that would need to be met before a referendum can take place.

1. Are business cycles and economic structures compatible with European interest rates on a permanent basis?
2. If problems emerge, is there sufficient flexibility to deal with them?
3. What impact would entry into the euro have on the UK's financial services industry?
4. Would joining the euro create better conditions for firms making long-term decisions to invest in Britain?
5. Would joining the euro promote higher growth, stability and a lasting increase in jobs?

Demographics

The primary language spoken is English. Other languages include Welsh, Gaelic, Irish and various dialects of Scots. Recent immigrants from elsewhere in the Commonwealth speak other languages, including Urdu.

The United Kingdom has two of the world's most famous universities in its borders, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, and has brought forth great scientists and engineers such as Isaac Newton, James Watt, Charles Darwin, and Alexander Fleming.

Playwright William Shakespeare is arguably the most famous writer in the world; other well-known writers include the Bronte sisters, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and J. R. R. Tolkien. Important poets include Robert Burns, Thomas Hardy, John Milton, Alfred Tennyson, Dylan Thomas and William Wordsworth.

Composers William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, John Taverner, John Blow, Henry Purcell, Edward Elgar, Arthur Sullivan, William Walton, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett have made major contributions to British music, and are known internationally. Living composers include John Tavener, Harrison Birtwistle and Oliver Knussen.

Britain has been described as a land without music, but it supports a number of major orchestras including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and its several music colleges have helped to teach many well known musicians. Because of its location and other economic factors London is one of the most important cities for music in the world, and has several important concert halls and is also home to the Royal Opera House, one of the world's leading opera houses. British traditional music has also been very influential abroad.

The UK has also produced the famous Rock and roll bands The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, Sex Pistols, Oasis, and Radiohead. It has also pioneered in various forms of electronic dance music such as acid house, drum and bass and trip hop, which were in whole or part developed in the United Kingdom and have spawned various internationally known acts such as Underworld, Massive Attack, The Chemical Brothers and Portishead. The United Kingdom is one of three countries which have a profitable recorded music industry, based mostly on popular music, the others being the United States and Sweden. (see main article: Music of the United Kingdom).

Visual artists from the United Kingdom include such luminaries as John Constable, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, William Blake and J.M.W. Turner. In the 20th century, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, and the pop artists Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake are of note. More recently still, the so-called Young British Artists have gained some notoriety, particularly Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

The United Kingdom also has a vibrant tradition of theatre, and London has many theatres which put on plays and musicals, including the National Theatre.

Public & Bank Holidays

Date	Name
1 January	New Year's Day
2 January	(Scotland only)
The Friday before Easter Sunday	Good Friday
First Sunday after the first full moon since the vernal equinox	Easter Sunday
The day after Easter Sunday	Easter Monday
First Monday in May	May Day Bank Holiday
Last Monday in May	Spring Bank Holiday
Last Monday in August	Summer Bank Holiday
25 December	Christmas Day
26 December	Boxing Day (not Scotland)
17 March	St Patrick's Day (Northern Ireland only)
12 July	Battle of the Boyne - Orangemen's Day (Northern Ireland only)