Independence:

1 January 1801, the United Kingdom was established

National holiday:

Celebration of the Birthday of the Queen (second

Saturday in June)

The Head of the State:

Queen Elizabeth II (since 6 February 1952)

The Head of the Government:

the Prime Minister

The Legislative branch:

• the Parliament which consists of an upper house or House of Lords and a lower house or House of Commons

• House of Lords (consists of 500 life peers, 92 hereditary peers and 26 clergy) and House of Commons (646 seats since 2005 elections)

The Executive branch:

• monarch

• prime minister

• Cabinet of ministers

Political Parties:

the two largest parties are the Conservative and Labour

parties

Elections:

• to the House of Commons, at least once in every five years, every citizen over 18 has the right to vote, last held 5 May 2005 (next to be held by May 2010)

• the House of Lords – no elections

Flag:

known as the Union Jack, with the crosses of patron

saints of England (St George), Scotland (St Andrew),

Ireland (St Patrick). It is blue with three red crosses

edged in white

Currency:

• British pound (pounds) or pound sterling

• 1 British pound (J) = 100 pence. There are 1p, 2p, 5p, 20p, 50p and J1 coins

• banknotes are J5, J10, J20 and J50

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What do you know about:

• the UK as an island state?

• the languages spoken in the UK?

• the chief rivers of Britain and their importance in the life of the country?

• the main countries of the UK and their capitals?

• countries of the UK which occupy the two main islands?

• the area and the population of the UK?

• the Lake District?

• the longest river in the UK?

• reasons why the sea has been important in the history of England?

• natural resources of Britain?

• national flag of the UK?

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PART FOUR

Lectures

LECTURE 1: THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

• The UK: Country, People

• Formation of the Country

• Meanings of Some Names

• The National Symbols

• The British Commonwealth of Nations

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country situated on the British Isles, lying off the north-west coast of the continent of Europe. The British Isles are composed of about 4,000 islands. The largest of the British Isles is Great Britain which contains England, Wales and Scotland. The second largest island is Ireland. It is shared by two independent states. The larger part of Ireland is the Republic of Ireland, an independent state with its capital in Dublin. Northern Ireland remains a part of the United Kingdom.

People of Great Britain are called “the British” or “Britons”, and separately they are the English, the Welsh, the Scotch (Scots), the Irish.

The formation of the United Kingdom took centuries. The union of England with Wales dates from 1301, when Edward I’s son was announced the first Prince of Wales.

The union of England and Scotland dates from 1603, when King of Scotland James VI inherited the crown of England after the death of Elizabeth I.

Ireland was joined to England in 1801, and the country’s official name became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1937, 26 Irish counties withdrew from the UK and formed the Irish Free State (renamed to the Republic of Ireland in 1949). Only 6 northern counties remained under British control and now the official name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The country is often unofficially called the UK, Great Britain, Britain or England, and sometimes old and romantic name – Albion.

The word “Britain” derives from the word Britannia, the name given by the Romans to the area inhabited by Brits and which is now England, Scotland and Wales.

Nowadays the UK is personified under the name of Britannia “as a woman seated on a globe”.

The flag of the UK (known as Union Jack – for an old word “sailor”) is made up of colours and crosses of national flags of England, Scotland and Ireland. The name, the colours and crosses symbolize the united parts of the country. Union Jack comprises three crosses. The red cross on the white field is St George’s Cross – saint of England; the white cross on the blue field is St Andrew’s Cross – the saint of Scotland; the red cross on the white field is St Patrick’s Cross – the saint of Ireland.

The British national anthem “God save the Queen (King)” is the oldest in the world, established in 1745.

The national emblem of England is the red rose; the purple thistle – of Scotland; the leek or daffodil – of Wales; the shamrock – of Ireland.

The red rose became the emblem of England after the Wars of the Roses (15th century), which was the war of the dynasties for the English throne. The War of the Roses was ended by the marriage of Henry VII Tudor (whose emblem was the red rose) with Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV (whose emblem was the white rose). The red rose has since become the national emblem of England.

The thistle, the national emblem of Scotland, saved the country from the enemy. A legend says in ancient times the Norsemen wanted to settle in Scotland. The people of Scotland were tired after a long march and were resting and not expected the enemy. The Norsemen saw that no guards protected the camp and they intended to take the Scots by surprise. They took off their shoes not to make noise. But one of them stepped on a thistle and cried with pain. The alarm was given in the Scots camp. So, they chose the thistle as their national emblem.

The leek or daffodil is Welshmen’s national emblem. Welshmen celebrate on March 1 St David’s Day by wearing either leeks or daffodils. St David is supposed to have lived for several years on bread and wild leeks.

The shamrock, the national emblem of the Irish, is worn on St Patrick’s Day, March 17. It is worn in memory of Ireland’s saint, who when preaching to the pagan he used the shamrock.

Today the British Empire is known as the British Commonwealth of Nations. It is used to describe the relations between Britain and its former colonies that have become independent but still have some links with the UK.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION:

• The UK: country and people

• Multinational society

• What some names mean

• The formation of the British Nation

• The national symbols

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LECTURE 2: HISTORY OF BRITAIN

• The Early Days of Britain

• The Celtic Tribes

• Roman Britain

• The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of Britain

• Old English

Britain has a long and rich history. Little is known about the ancient population of the British Isles. About ten thousand years B.C. (before Christ) the British Isles, were peopled by small groups of hunters and fishers. Then they learned to grow crops, made tools of stone. Later they learned to make metal tools. These people were religious and built primitive temples which still stand in some parts of England and Scotland. They are circles of great stones.

In some parts of modern Britain one can see a number of huge stones standing in a circle. These are the monuments left by the earliest inhabitants of the country. The best-known stone-circle named Stonehenge dates from between 1900 and 1600 B.C. in the south of England. It is made of many upright stones; they are joined on the top by other flat stones, each weighing about 7 tons. Stonehenge is still a mystery to scientists.

In the course of time, different groups of people were arriving in Britain, bringing their customs and skills. During the period from the 6th to the 3rd century B.C. a people called the Celts spread across Europe from the east to the west. Celtic tribes – the Iberians (иберы), the Picts (пикты), the Scots and the Britons – invaded Britain. The Picts penetrated into the mountains on the North; the Scots settled in the North beside the Picts. Powerful Celtic tribes, the Britons, held most of the country, and the southern half of the island was named Britain after them. Celts lived in tribes, and were ruled by military leaders, sometimes they were called kings. Celts introduced the use of iron. The ancient Celts were tall and blue-eyed. They believed their gods lived in natural places (forests, on hills or by water). Their priests known as druids were an important part of society.

Two thousand years ago while the Celts were still living in tribes the Romans conquered a huge empire in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In 55 B.C. the Roman army with Julius Caesar crossed the Channel and invaded Britain. The Celts resisted Roman attack and the well-armed Romans had to retreat to France. In the next year, 54 B.C., Caesar again came to Britain, this time with larger forces. The local tribes fought bravely for their independence but they were not strong enough. The Romans defeated the Celts and some of them agreed to pay tributes to Rome.

The Romans didn’t appear on the British shores for hundred years. Then, in the year 43 A.D. (Anno Domini) the Romans returned and occupied England. The Celts fought fiercely against the Romans who never managed to become masters of the whole island. They were unable to conquer Scotland and never tried to occupy Ireland.

British history of that period contains information on Boudicea’s revolt. Boudicea was the queen of a tribe after her husband’s death. In 61 A.D. she led an uprising against the Romans. The revolt was suppressed. The English remember her because she was the first famous British queen. Today you can see her, a tall, beautiful woman, in Hyde Park, in the middle of London.

The Romans remained in Britain for about four centuries. The Romans had to withdraw their troops from Britain in 410 A.D. because the army was needed to defend the Roman Empire from the attacks of the barbarian Germanic tribes. They never returned to Britain.

As soon as the Romans had conquered Britain they began to build long roads, bridges, splendid villas, public bath. They constructed new towns, introduced drainage system, houses with glass windows, and central heating. One of the oldest buildings in Britain is the Roman lighthouse or Pharos, at Dover. Roman camps became centres of trade. The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing. They introduced the Alphabet the British use today, and almost half the words in modern English derive from Latin.

There are many Roman remains in Britain, for example, baths in Bath, castle walls in York.

From the middle of the 5th century Celtic tribes had to defend the country against the attacks of Germanic tribes (the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes) from the Continent. They were wild and fearless people. Celts fought against the invaders and it took the Angles and the Saxons a hundred and fifty years to conquer the country. The British natives were forced to retreat to the mountains in the west of the isle and settled there.

The Saxons formed a number of kingdoms in the South, and the Angles settled in the North. The new settlers preferred to live in small villages. They destroyed the Roman towns, buildings. Roads were soon in ruins.

The Saxons and the Angles gradually merged into one people and made up the majority of the population in Britain. Their customs, religion and language became predominant. Only the Celts who remained independent in Scotland and Ireland spoke their native tongue.

For a long time the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fought with one another for supreme power. By the 7th century England consisted of seven kingdoms. The strong kingdoms controlled their weaker neighbours. In 829 under the rule of King Egbert all the small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were united to form one kingdom which was called England.

Old English belongs to the branch of West Germanic languages. A distinctive mark of old English is inflectional endings.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION:

• Early Britain

• The Celtic tribes

• The origin of the British

• Roman Influence in Britain

• The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain

Video (DVD): Simon Schama A History of Britain (BBC) («Саймон Шама История Британии») 1, 2 parts

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LECTURE 3: THE MIDDLE AGES

• The Raids of the Danes

• Alfred the Great

• The Norman Invasion

• The Feudal System

• The Great Charter

Until the 8th century Anglo-Saxon Britain was not a united country. It consisted of small and weak kingdoms and they could not hold out against attacks from abroad.

Beginning with the 8th century, pirates from Scandinavia and Denmark began raiding the eastern shores of Britain. They are known in English history as the Danes. They landed their long boats, killed and robbed the population of the towns and villages and sailed away. They returned over and over again and continued killing and robbing the population. Gradually they began settling in Britain and seized more and more land.

The Anglo-Saxons understood that their small kingdoms must unite in order to struggle against the Danes. In the 9th century Egbert, the king one of the strongest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, united several neighbouring kingdoms, and Egbert became the first king of the country called England.

Alfred, the grandson of Egbert, became king in the year 871, when England’s danger was greatest. The Danes who had settled on the shores of Britain, robbed and killed the people of England. Alfred gathered a big army and gave the Danes a great battle in 891. The Danes were defeated in this battle, but still remained very strong and dangerous, and Alfred hurried to make peace with them. There were some years of peace, and during this time Alfred built the first English navy.

Alfred is the only king of England who got the name “the Great”. And he was really a great king. He was very well educated for his time. He had travelled on the continent and visited France. He had learned to read and write when he was quite young. He knew Latin. He tried to enlighten his people. He worked out a code of laws. He translated the Church history and parts of the Bible from Latin into Anglo-Saxon. He started the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is the first history of England.

The Normans or “Northmen” was descended from Vikings who had settled in northern France during the 9th century.

After the time of Alfred the Great people were continually fighting all over England. The country was needed a strong king. In 1066 King Edward of England died and his nephew William, Duke of Normandy (France) gathered a great army and sailed across the English Channel on hundreds of ships. Most English nobles did not want a French king and proclaimed Harold, the son of the Earl of Wessex, the King of England. There was a great battle on October 14, 1066. Harold’s soldiers fought bravely, but William’s army was stronger. Harold was killed in the battle.

William marched his army to London and became the English king William I known as “the Conqueror”. William the Conqueror took lands from Saxon nobles and gave them to his Norman barons who became new masters of the land. The Normans did not know the Anglo-Saxon language and did not want to learn it. And for a very long time two languages were spoken in the country.

The Normans introduced a new social system into England which is known as the feudal system. The central idea of feudal society was that all land was owned by the king but it was held by others, called vassals, in return for services and goods. The king gave large estates to his main nobles in return for a promise to serve him in war.

William I organized a strong central government in which Normans held most positions of power. The nobles paid taxes to the King. There were two types of peasant. Free peasants owned or rented land; villains (крепостной) paid their lord dues and worked on his land as well as their own.

After William the Conqueror’s death in 1087, three more kings of the Norman dynasty ruled England: his two sons, William II and Henry I, and his grandson, the son of his daughter, Stephen. Henry I’s daughter was married to the French count and their son Henry was made the King of England, after Stephen’s death in 1154. Henry II ruled a large empire stretched from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees; England and a large part of the south of France.

His son Richard I known as the Lion-Heart became King of England after his father’s death. Richard I played a small part in the affairs of England and a large part in the affairs of Europe. He spent most of his time on crusade (a series of military expeditions undertaken by Christian European power). Richard I was a man of excellent manners, kind to his friends and cruel to his enemies. He was famous for his good education; he knew Latin and was fond of music and poetry.

Richard the Lion-Heart was killed in one of the battles in France, and the English throne passed to his brother John. At that time great territories in France belonged to England. The French Kings and nobles did not like it. So the English and the French waged continuous wars in France. King John needed a lot of money to wage these wars. He made the barons give him that money, and he made enemies among the barons (a landowning nobleman) and the clergy. He imposed on them heavy taxes. The barons did not like it and in 1215 the barons made him sign a document called the Great Charter (Magna Carta in Latin), establishing their rights and protecting the nobles from taxation. Merchants received permission to travel freely and do business.

For the first time in the history of England, the Great Charter officially stated certain rights and liberties of the people, which the king had to respect.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION:

• Uniting the Country

• A new social system

• English Kings of the 11th and 12th Centuries

Video (DVD): Simon Schama A History of Britain (BBC) («Саймон Шама История Британии») 3, 4, 5 parts

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Lecture 4: THE NEW MONARCHY

• The Wars of the Roses

• Tudor Dynasty

• The 100 Years’ War

• Absolute Monarchy

The Wars of the Roses is the name given to the struggle for power between the two factions of the royal family – the houses of York and Lancaster. They are named after the emblems of the two rivals – the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster.

Henry VI could not control his nobles and lost most of the land that Henry V had gained in France. The fighting began in 1455 and continued for 30 years. Each royal house murdered every possible heir to the throne. Some of them were killed in the war, some were prisoners in the Tower and murdered there. The head of the house of Lancaster Henry Tudor’s marriage to Elizabeth of York, Edward IV’s daughter, put an end to the Wars of Roses. This marriage was of great political importance.

A new dynasty came to power with the union of the red rose of the House of Lancaster and the white rose of the House of York. The period of Tudor rule (1485-1603) is described as the most glorious period in English history and is often associated with the names of Henry VII, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

Henry VII established the new monarchy. He created new nobility from among merchants making them his statesmen who were devoted to him. This helped him to recover royal authority. Henry VII was clever with people, careful with money, encouraged trade and enterprise. During his reign only king could keep armed men, this strengthened his power and weakened the nobles. He encouraged English trade at home and abroad. Henry VII financed construction works, culture and especially the building of ships for a merchant fleet. He understood that England’s future wealth would depend on international trade for which a fleet was a necessity.

The 100 Years’ War was a series of wars between England and France which lasted from 1337 to 1453. In 1328 Charles IV of France died without a male heir. The English King Edward III, whose mother was a French Princess, wanted to become the King of France. Edward declared that he wished to defend English trade and the war broke out in 1337. At first England was successful in the war. The English fleet defeated the French fleet in the English Channel. The war ended in 1453 and England lost all its French land.

Henry VII’s son Henry VIII succeeded his father at the age of 17. He was well-educated, spoke French, Latin and Spanish, and was very religious. He was fond of music, hunting and playing tennis. During his reign music and poetry flourished at his court, he composed music and poetry himself.

His father left him a stable and well-ordered country. But Henry VIII was quite unlike his father, careful and patient ruler. His son was cruel, wasteful with money and interested in pleasing himself. Henry VIII wanted to have an important influence on European politics. But he was unsuccessful. England had lost its lands in France in the Hundred Years’ War. France and Spain were more powerful than England.

Henry VIII disliked the power of the Catholic Church in England. He decided to take control of the Church in England and to keep its wealth in his own kingdom. He persuaded the English bishops to break away from the Catholic Church and establish a new Church in England, the head of which would be the English monarch. In 1531 the Church of England was established in the country, and England officially became a Protestant country. Henry VIII closed many monasteries and their property was confiscated by the King. Most of them were sold and many were destroyed.

Henry’s break with Rome and Catholic Church was a necessary declaration of national independence. England became a separate and independent nation.

Elizabeth, Henry VIII’s daughter, succeeded him on the throne at the age of 25. When coming to power she confronted with many problems, one of which was the Church. Elizabeth was Protestant. She became Supreme Governor of the English (or Anglican) Church. Elizabeth I managed to make the Church a part of the state machine.

Elizabeth’s reign is known as the Golden Age of Britain. The Queen reigned almost 45 years and turned the poor and weak country into a great world power expending its influence overseas. Elizabeth I pursued successful policies at home and abroad. She skillfully used rivalry of the two greatest Catholic powers (Spain and France) to gain peace which she needed to turn the country into a strong country.

She improved the economy of the country. Elizabeth, as well as her father and grandfather, considered trade the most important foreign policy and encouraged merchant expansion. England became known as the nation of merchants. The people were busy making money.

Elizabeth I allowed her “sea dogs” (seamen) who were traders as well as pirates to attack Spanish ships returning from America loaded with silver and gold. The treasure was shared with the Queen, and she could increase her income and save people from high taxes. Her share enabled Elizabeth’s government to start a vast building programme. Many schools, hospitals were founded. The arts flourished in England during Elizabeth’s reign.

It was the age of great names and of great deeds (Francis Drake, William Shakespeare and others).

The peak of the country’s development was reached in 1588, when the Spanish Armada, an enormous fleet sent by Spanish King Philip II to conquer England, was defeated. The defeat of the Spanish Armada was the high point of the Queen’s reign and united the nation.

Elizabeth I was never married and in 1587 she accepted James VI of Scotland, the Protestant son of Mary Queen of Scots as her heir. Elizabeth died in 1603 and James became James I of England, first Stuart king of England. He united the Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION:

• The House of Lancaster and York

• The House of Tudor

• Wars Abroad and At Home

• The New Monarchy