About England 
About England
Table
of contents
Table of contents
Entry about England
I. History
II. Government and politics
III. Geography
IV. Climate
V. Economics
VI. Demography
VII. Culture
VIII. Language
IX. Religion
X. People
Utillized literature
Entry. England (Old English: Englaland,
Middle English: Engelond) is the largest and most populous constituent country
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Its inhabitants
account for more than 83% of the total population of the United Kingdom, while
the mainland territory of England occupies most of the southern two-thirds of
the island of Great Britain and shares land borders with Scotland to the north
and Wales to the west. Elsewhere, it is bordered by the North Sea, Irish Sea,
Celtic Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel.
England became a unified
state in the year 927 and takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic
tribes who settled there during the 5th and 6th centuries. The capital of
England is London, the largest urban area in Great Britain, and the largest
urban zone in the European Union by most, but not all, measures.
England ranks amongst the
world's most influential and far-reaching centres of cultural development. It
is the place of origin of the English language and the Church of England, and
English law forms the basis of the legal systems of many countries; in
addition, London was the centre of the British Empire, and the country was the
birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. England was the first country in the
world to become industrialised. England is home to the Royal Society, which
laid the foundations of modern experimental science. England was the world's
first modern parliamentary democracy and consequently many constitutional,
governmental and legal innovations that had their origin in England have been
widely adopted by other nations.
The Kingdom of England
was a separate state, including the Principality of Wales, until 1 May 1707,
when the Acts of Union resulted in a political union with the Kingdom of
Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.
I. Bones and flint tools found in
Norfolk and Suffolk show that Homo erectus lived in what is now England about
700,000 years ago. At this time, England was joined to mainland Europe by a
large land bridge. The current position of the English Channel was a large
river flowing westwards and fed by tributaries that would later become the
Thames and the Seine. This area was greatly depopulated during the period of
the last major ice age, as were other regions of the British Isles. In the
subsequent recolonisation, after the thawing of the ice, genetic research shows
that present-day England was the last area of the British Isles to be
repopulated, about 13,000 years ago. The migrants arriving during this period
contrast with the other of the inhabitants of the British Isles, coming across
lands from the south east of Europe, whereas earlier arriving inhabitants came
north along a coastal route from Iberia. These migrants would later adopt the
Celtic culture that came to dominate much of western Europe.
Roman conquest of Britain
By AD 43, the time of the main Roman invasion, Britain had already been
the target of frequent invasions, planned and actual, by forces of the Roman
Republic and Roman Empire. It was first invaded by the Roman dictator Julius
Caesar in 55 BC, but it was conquered more fully by the Emperor Claudius in 43
AD. Like other regions on the edge of the empire, Britain had long enjoyed
trading links with the Romans, and their economic and cultural influence was a
significant part of the British late pre-Roman Iron Age, especially in the
south. With the fall of the Roman Empire 400 years later, the Romans left
England.
Anglo-Saxons
The History of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of early mediaeval
England from the end of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms in the 5th century until the Conquest by the Normans in 1066.
Fragmentary knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England in the 5th and 6th centuries
comes from the British writer Gildas (6th century) the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (a
history of the English people begun in the 9th century), saints' lives, poetry,
archaeological findings, and place-name studies.
The dominant themes of the seventh to tenth centuries were the spread of
Christianity and the political unification of England. Christianity is thought
to have come from three directions—from Rome to the south, and Scotland and
Ireland to the north and west.
From about 500, England was divided (it is believed) into seven petty
kingdoms, known as the Heptarchy: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex,
Kent, Sussex, and Wessex.
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms tended to coalesce by means of warfare. As early
as the time of Ethelbert of Kent, one king could be recognised as Bretwalda
("Lord of Britain"). Generally speaking, the title fell in the 7th
century to the kings of Northumbria, in the 8th to those of Mercia, and in the
9th, to Egbert of Wessex, who in 825 defeated the Mercians at the Battle of
Ellendun. In the next century his family came to rule all England.
Kingdom of England
Originally, England (or Englaland) was a geographical term to describe
the part of Britain occupied by the Anglo-Saxons, rather than a name of an
individual nation-state. It became politically united through the expansion of
the kingdom of Wessex, whose king Athelstan brought the whole of England under
one ruler for the first time in 927, although unification did not become
permanent until 954, when Edred defeated Eric Bloodaxe and became King of
England.
In 1016 England was conquered by the Danish king Canute the Great, and
became the centre of government for his short-lived empire which included
Denmark and Norway. In 1042 England became a separate kingdom again with the
accession of Edward the Confessor, heir of the native English dynasty.
However,the political ties and direction of England were changed forever by the
Norman Conquest in 1066.
The Kingdom of England (including Wales) continued to exist as an
independent nation-state right through to the Acts of Union.
Middle Ages
The next few hundred years saw England as a major part of expanding and
dwindling empires based in France, with the "Kings of England" using
England as a source of troops to enlarge their personal holdings in France for
many years (Hundred Years' War) ; in fact the English crown did not relinquish
its last foothold on mainland France until Calais was lost during the reign of
Mary Tudor (the Channel Islands are still crown dependencies, though not part
of the UK).
In the 13th century, through conquest Wales (the remaining Romano-Celts)
was brought under the control of English monarchs. This was formalised in the
Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, by which Wales became part of the Kingdom of
England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Wales shared a legal identity with
England as the joint entity originally called England and later England and
Wales.
An epidemic of catastrophic proportions, the Black Death first reached
England in the summer of 1348. The Black Death is estimated to have killed
between a third and two-thirds of Europe's population. England alone lost as
much as 70% of its population, which passed from seven million to two million
in 1400. The plague repeatedly returned to haunt England throughout the 14th to
17th centuries. The Great Plague of London in 1665–1666 was the last plague
outbreak.
Reformation
During the English Reformation in the 16th century, the external
authority of the Roman Catholic Church in England was abolished and replaced
with Royal Supremacy and ultimately describes the establishment of a Church of
England, outside the Roman Catholic Church, under the Supreme Governance of the
English monarch. The English Reformation differed from its European counterparts
in that it was a political, rather than purely theological, dispute at root.
The break with Rome started in the reign of Henry VIII.
The English Reformation paved the way for the spread of Anglicanism in
the church and other institutions.
Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political
machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642
until 1651. The first (1642–1645) and second (1648–1649) civil wars pitted the
supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament,
while the third war (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles
II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The Civil War ended with the
Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.
The Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of
his son Charles II and the replacement of the English monarchy with the
Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and then with a Protectorate (1653–1659) :
the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell. After a brief return to Commonwealth
rule, in 1660 The Crown was restored and Charles II accepted Convention
Parliament's invitation to return to England. During the interregnum the
monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England came to an
end, and the victors consolidated the already-established Protestant Ascendancy
in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established a precedent that British
monarchs could not govern without the consent of Parliament although this would
not be cemented until the Glorious Revolution later in the century.
Great Britain and the United Kingdom
Although embattled for centuries, the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of
Scotland had been drawing increasingly together since the Protestant
Reformation of the 16th century and after 1603, when the two countries became
linked by a personal union, being ruled by the same Stuart dynasty. Following a
number of attempts to unite the Kingdoms, on 1 May 1707, the Acts of Union
resulted in a political union between the states creating the Kingdom of Great
Britain.The Kingdom of Ireland later joined this union to form the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland changed its name to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland in 1927 to reflect its reduced territory following the secession of
southern Ireland as the Irish Free State in 1922.
Throughout these changes, England (including Wales) retained a separate
legal identity from its partners, with a separate legal system (English law)
from those in Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland law) and Scotland (Scots law).
(See subdivisions of the United Kingdom)
Wales had already been made part of the Kingdom of England by the Statute
of Rhuddlan in 1284, and it was legally incorporated into England by the Wales
and Berwick Act 1746, making laws passed in England automatically applicable to
Wales. This was reversed by the Welsh Language Act 1967, which thus effectively
gave Wales a separate identity from England. Since then, legal and political
terminology refers to "England and Wales". The county of
Monmouthshire has long been an ambiguous area, its legal identity passing
between England and Wales at various periods. In the Local Government Act 1972
it was made part of Wales.
The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 also referred to the formerly Scottish
burgh of Berwick-upon-Tweed. The border town changed hands several times and
was last conquered by England in 1482, but was not officially incorporated into
England. Contention about whether Berwick was in England or Scotland was ended
by the union of the two in 1707. Berwick remains within the English legal
system and so is regarded today as part of England though there has been some
suggestion in Scotland that Berwick should be invited to 'return to the fold'.
The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are Crown dependencies and are
not part of England or of the United Kingdom.
II. There has not been a Government of
England since 1707, when the Kingdom of England merged with the Kingdom of
Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, although both kingdoms have been
ruled by a single monarch since 1603. Before the Acts of Union of 1707, England
was ruled by a monarch and the Parliament of England.
Following the
establishment of devolved government for Scotland and Wales in 1999, England
was left as the only country within the United Kingdom still governed in all
matters by the UK government and the UK parliament in London. (Those, like
Mebyon Kernow, who claim that Cornwall should be viewed as having a distinct
national identity and who campaign for a Cornish assembly along Welsh lines may
dispute this claim.)
Since Westminster is the
UK parliament but also legislates on matters that affect England alone,
devolution of national matters to parliament/assemblies in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland has refocused attention on the anomaly called the West Lothian
question. The "Question" is that Scottish and Welsh MPs continue to
be able to vote on legislation relating only to England in the post devolution
era while English MPs have no equivalent right to legislate on devolved
matters. (Of course, Scottish and Welsh MPs are also unable to vote on devolved
issues affecting their own constituencies.) This 'problem' is exacerbated by an
over-representation of Scottish MPs in the government, sometimes referred to as
the Scottish mafia; as of September 2006, seven of the twenty-three Cabinet
members represent Scottish constituencies, including the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Home Secretary and Defence Secretary. In addition, Scotland
traditionally benefited from moderate malapportionment in its favour,
increasing its representation to a degree disproportionate to its population.
In 2004 the Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004 was passed which
rectified this to a degree, reducing the number of MPs representing Scottish
constituencies from 73 to 59 and brought the number of voters per constituency
closer to that in England. This change was implemented in the 2005 General
Election.
There are calls for a
devolved English Parliament, and certain English parties go further by calling
for the dissolution of the Union entirely. However, the approach favoured by
the current Labour government was (on the basis that England is too large to be
governed as a single sub-state entity) to propose the devolution of power to
the Regions of England. Lord Falconer claimed a devolved English parliament
would dwarf the rest of the United Kingdom.
In terms of national
administration, therefore, England's affairs are managed by a combination of
the UK government, the UK parliament and England-specific quangos such as
English Heritage.
III. England comprises the central and
southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain, plus offshore islands of
which the largest is the Isle of Wight. It is bordered to the north by Scotland
and to the west by Wales. It is closer to continental Europe than any other
part of Britain, divided from France only by a 24-statute mile (52 km or 21 nautical
mile) sea gap. The Channel Tunnel, near Folkestone, directly links England to
the European mainland. The English/French border is halfway along the tunnel.
Much of England consists of rolling hills, but it is generally more
mountainous in the north with a chain of low mountains, the Pennines, dividing
east and west. Other hilly areas in the north and Midlands are the Lake
District, the North York Moors, and the Peak District. The approximate dividing
line between terrain types is often indicated by the Tees-Exe line. To the
south of that line, there are larger areas of flatter land, including East
Anglia and the Fens, although hilly areas include the Cotswolds, the Chilterns,
the North and South Downs, Dartmoor and Exmoor.
The largest natural harbour in England is at Poole, on the south-central
coast. Some regard it as the second largest harbour in the world, after Sydney,
Australia, although this fact is disputed (see harbours for a list of other
large natural harbour).
IV. England has a temperate climate,
with plentiful rainfall all year round, although the seasons are quite variable
in temperature. However, temperatures rarely fall below −5 °C (23 °F) or
rise above 30 °C (86 °F). The prevailing wind is from the south-west, bringing
mild and wet weather to England regularly from the Atlantic Ocean. It is driest
in the east and warmest in the south, which is closest to the European
mainland. Snowfall can occur in winter and early spring, although it is not
that common away from high ground.
The highest temperature recorded in England is 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) on
August 10, 2003 at Brogdale, near Faversham, in Kent. The lowest temperature
recorded in England is −26.1 °C (−15.0 °F) on January 10, 1982 at
Edgmond, near Newport, in Shropshire.
V. England's economy is the second
largest in Europe and the fifth largest in the world. It follows the
Anglo-Saxon economic model. England's economy is the largest of the four
economies of the United Kingdom, with 100 of Europe's 500 largest corporations
based in London. As part of the United Kingdom, England is a major centre of
world economics. One of the world's most highly industrialised countries,
England is a leader in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors and in key
technical industries, particularly aerospace, the arms industry and the
manufacturing side of the software industry.
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