Category: History

It is thought that the Angles originated in Poland but had moved to central Denmark by the 4th century. They then expanded their territory into Germany, the Netherlands and eventually Britain. Traditionally, historians have claimed that the Angles ‘invaded’ Britain en masse in 500AD, abandoning their own overcrowded country for the sparsely-populated, fertile lands of England and southern Scotland. The Angles, along with the Saxons who arrived at around the same time, were described as brutish, uncivilised tyrants who easily conquered the pathetic British peasants.

This is now disputed. Modern archaeologists can find no sign of any battles or sudden large-scale immigration. Instead, new excavations and computer analysis point towards Britain having peaceful, well-organised trading links with Europe for many centuries, resulting in a natural flow of immigration. Fort-like structures on the coast were more likely to have been trading posts. Foreign ornaments and jewellery unearthed here were simply purchases from abroad.

Furthermore, there is evidence that cometary fragments wiped out most of England and part of Scotland in 562AD, leaving it open to undisturbed, gradual settlement by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians after the land started to recover.

(Image: pixabay.com)

The invasion of Britain by William the Conqueror in 1066 was devastating for the English nobility, because he proceeded to confiscate almost all of their land, kept 20% for himself and gave all but 4% of the remainder to his supporters. The north of England was laid to ruin and people starved to death.

In December 1085, William decided to put his final stamp of authority over the country by ordering an accounting record of all the land, buildings, equipment, farm animals, landowners and serfs. This made tax collecting more efficient, although with no surnames yet, some peope were simply described as “man” or “two girls”. It was, however, the first nationwide data collection exercise, completed in just seven months, and it became known as the Domesday Book because it resembled a list prepared for ‘the day of reckoning’.

The original Domesday Book is held at the National Archives in Kew. There are two books, in fact ~ the neatly presented ‘Great Domesday’ and the more jumbled, unedited ‘Little Domesday’. Both are written by hand on parchment and in Latin. The City of London, Winchester, Hastings and other big towns are not to be found in the Book, since they were tax-exempt at the time.

(Image: John Palmer & George Slater at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 1.0)

Until UK currency changed in 1971, when the pound (£) became equivalent to 100 pence (called ‘decimalisation’), people certainly knew their multiples and factors of 12, as well as 20, very well indeed. Everyone had the following mathematical facts at their fingertips:-

In addition to these, there were the 12-sided threepence (3d.), or ‘thrupenny bit’, and the silver sixpence (6d.), also known as a ‘tanner’. A farthing was quarter of a penny and went out of circulation in 1960. The halfpenny (pronounced hape-nee) went out in 1969 and the half crown in 1970, as did the 10 shilling (10/-) note. The shilling coins were used as 5p coins until 1990 and the florins were used as 10p coins until 1993. The little silver sixpences were worth 2.5p, so only survived until 1980.

(Image: Adrian Clark on Flickr.com / CC BY-ND 2.0)

The first man who could seriously claim to be ‘Rex tot. Brit.‘, as shown on the coins of his reign, or indeed King of England, was King Athelstan. He ruled from 927 until his death in his mid-40s in 939. He became king of Mercia in 924 but at a time when the island of Britain faced an ongoing threat from the Vikings and the Danes, he must have had his eye on the bigger picture of uniting to push them back.

He strategically married off his sister to the Northumbrian ruler and later, his half-sisters to four European monarchs. He also gave generous gifts of land and riches to those with whom he wished to make alliances, such as church leaders. Of course, he won important military victories too and this led to the regional English rulers agreeing to his overall sovereignty, along with the Welsh and Scottish submitting to his ‘overlordship’.

There were subsequent rebellions but, for a few years at least, England was peacefully administered by a king who clearly valued justice, education, religious observance and centralisation of power. King Athelstan did not marry and have children, so the ‘royal line’ was continued by his two half-brothers, then the sons of one of those half-brothers, with varying degrees of success.

(Image [cropped]: Smabs Sputzer at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Unfortunately, Henry had desperately wanted a son and showed no interest in baby Elizabeth. Following two miscarriages of boys, Anne was beheaded when Elizabeth was 2 years old.

This tragic start in life may have helped to shape the resilience of one of England’s best-loved monarchs ~ ‘Good Queen Bess’. She bore no children herself as she refused to marry, so she was also known as the ‘Virgin Queen’. Elizabeth was to be the last of the Tudor monarchs. Her two half-siblings from Henry’s first and third wives were crowned before her, one of them shutting her in the Tower of London!

After their deaths, Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 and her reign is known as the ‘Golden Age’, with legendary figures such as Shakespeare, Drake and Raleigh making their mark. She ruled for 45 years, during which time she displayed her intelligence, tolerance and gift for public speaking, as in her famous “I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king…” speech in defiance of the approaching Spanish Armada.

(Image: pixabay.com)

During most of the eighteenth century Britain and France were at war and this gave rise to a huge smuggling and wrecking industry all along the south coast of England. Soldiers were busy elsewhere, leaving Customs and Excise officials without enough support. Small rural communities were poor and, faced with rising Government taxes to help pay for the war, many men were enticed into these well-paid crimes.

Barrels of spirits, wine, tea, coffee and salt, and bales of silk and lace were among the untaxed shipments brought in under cover of darkness. Networks of tunnels in caves and cliffs were carved out for storage and then onward transportation inland.

Wrecking took things a step further and often involved luring a ship onto the rocks with confusing lights, so that a gang of men could then break up the ship and simply steal its cargo. At one time the law said that this could only be done if there was no-one still alive on the ship…. a sure death sentence for the besieged sailors in that situation!

(Image of models of smugglers at tourist attraction on the Isle of Wight: Chalkietom at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)