British monarchy and its influence upon governmental institutions
British monarchy and its influence upon governmental institutions
The Institute of Ecology, Linguistics and Low
Degree work
«BRITISH
MONARCHY
AND ITS
INFLUENCE
UPON
GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS»
Dunaeva Nina
Moscow, 2003
Contents
Part One
INTRODUCTION
The
United kingdom of Great Britain and Nothern Ireland................... 4
Direct
meaning of the word «monarchy»............................................... 6
The
British constitutional monarchy...................................................... 7
Part Two
HISTORY OF THE
MONARCHY
Kings and Queens of England................................................................. 9
The Anglo-Saxon Kings.......................................................................... 9
The Normans.......................................................................................... 23
The Angevins......................................................................................... 30
The Plantagenets.................................................................................... 33
The Lancastrians.................................................................................... 42
The Yorkists........................................................................................... 46
The Tudors............................................................................................. 48
The Stuarts............................................................................................. 58
The
Commonwealth Interregnum.................................................. 63
The Hanoverians.................................................................................... 75
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha............................................................................... 85
The House of Windsor.......................................................................... 87
Part Three
THE MONARCHY TODAY
The
Queen’s role................................................................................... 91
Queen’s
role in the modern State.......................................................... 91
Queen
and Commonwealth................................................................... 91
Royal
visits............................................................................................ 92
The
Queen’s working day...................................................................... 92
Ceremonies
and pageantry..................................................................... 92
The
Queen’s ceremonial duties............................................................. 93
Royal
pageantry and traditions.............................................................. 93
Royal
succession................................................................................... 93
The
Royal Household............................................................................ 93
Royal
Household departments.............................................................. 94
Recruitment........................................................................................... 94
Anniversaries......................................................................................... 95
Royal
finances........................................................................................ 95
Head
of State expenditure 2000-01...................................................... 95
Sources
of funding................................................................................ 96
Financial
arrangements of The Prince of Wales.................................. 96
Finances
of the other members of the Royal Family........................... 96
Taxation................................................................................................. 97
Royal
assets............................................................................................ 97
Symbols.................................................................................................. 98
National
anthem..................................................................................... 98
Royal
Warrants...................................................................................... 99
Bank
notes and coinage....................................................................... 100
Stamps.................................................................................................. 102
Coats
of Arms...................................................................................... 103
Great
Seal............................................................................................. 104
Flags..................................................................................................... 105
Crowns
and jewels.............................................................................. 105
Transport.............................................................................................. 105
Cars...................................................................................................... 106
Carriages.............................................................................................. 107
The
Royal Train................................................................................... 108
Royal
air travel.................................................................................... 109
Part Four
THE ROYAL FAMILY
Members
of the Royal Family............................................................ 111
HM
The Queen.................................................................................... 111
HRH
The Duke of Edinburgh............................................................. 111
HRH
The Prince of Wales and family................................................ 112
HRH
The Duke of York...................................................................... 112
TRH
The Earl and Countess of Wessex............................................. 112
HRH
Princess Royal........................................................................... 112
HRH
Princess Alice............................................................................ 113
TRH
The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester....................................... 113
TRH
The Duke and Duchess of Kent................................................. 113
TRH
Prince and Princess Michael of Kent........................................ 114
HRH
Princess Alexandra.................................................................... 114
Memorial
Plaque
HM
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother................................. 115
HRH
The Princess Margaret..................................................... 115
Diana,
Princess of Wales........................................................... 115
Part Five
ART AND RESIDENCES
The
Royal Collection.......................................................................... 116
About
the Royal Collection................................................................ 116
The
Royal Collection Trust................................................................ 117
Royal
Collection Enterprises.............................................................. 117
Publishing............................................................................................ 118
Royal
Residences................................................................................. 118
Royal
Collection Galleries................................................................. 118
Loans.................................................................................................... 119
The
Royal Residences......................................................................... 119
About
the Royal Residences............................................................... 119
Buckingham Palace............................................................................. 120
The
Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace......................................... 120
The
Royal Mews.................................................................................. 121
Windsor Castle.................................................................................... 121
Frogmore............................................................................................. 122
The Palace of Holyroodhouse............................................................ 122
Balmoral
Castle................................................................................... 123
Sandringham House............................................................................ 123
St
James’s Palace................................................................................. 124
Kensington Palace............................................................................... 124
Historic
residences.............................................................................. 124
Bibliography................................................................................. 126
UNITED
KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
Sovereign: Queen Elizabeth II (1952)
Government:
The United Kingdom is a
constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a queen and a
Parliament that has two houses: the House of Lords, with 574 life peers, 92
hereditary peers, 26 bishops, and the House of Commons, which has 651 popularly
elected members. Supreme legislative power is vested in Parliament, which sits
for five years unless sooner dissolved. The House of Lords was stripped of most
of its power in 1911, and now its main function is to revise legislation. In
Nov. 1999 hundreds of hereditary peers were expelled in an effort to make the
body more democratic. The executive power of the Crown is exercised by the
cabinet, headed by the prime minister.
Prime
Minister: Tony Blair (1997)
Area: 94,525 sq mi (244,820 sq km)
Population
(2003 est.): 60,094,648 (growth rate:
0.1%); birth rate: 11.0/1000; infant mortality rate: 5.3/1000; density per sq
mi: 636
Capital and largest city (2000 est.): London, 11,800,000 (metro. area)
Other
large cities: Birmingham, 1,009,100; Leeds, 721,800; Glasgow, 681,470; Liverpool, 479,000; Bradford, 477,500; Edinburgh,
441,620; Manchester, 434,600; Bristol, 396,600
Monetary
unit: Pound sterling (£)
Languages: English, Welsh, Scots Gaelic
Ethnicity/race: English 81.5%; Scottish 9.6%; Irish 2.4%; Welsh 1.9%;
Ulster 1.8%; West Indian, Indian, Pakistani, and other 2.8%
Religions: Church of England (established church), Church of Wales (disestablished), Church of Scotland (established church—Presbyterian),
Church of Ireland (disestablished), Roman Catholic, Methodist, Congregational,
Baptist, Jewish
Literacy
rate: 99% (1978)
Economic
summary: GDP/PPP (2000 est.):
$1.36 trillion; per capita $22,800. Real growth rate: 3%. Inflation: 2.4%.
Unemployment: 5.5%. Arable land: 25%. Agriculture: cereals,
oilseed, potatoes, vegetables; cattle, sheep, poultry; fish. Labor force: 29.2
million (1999); agriculture 1%, industry 19%, services 80% (1996 est.). Industries:
machine tools, electric power equipment, automation equipment, railroad
equipment, shipbuilding, aircraft, motor vehicles and parts, electronics and
communications equipment, metals, chemicals, coal, petroleum, paper and paper
products, food processing, textiles, clothing, and other consumer goods. Natural
resources: coal, petroleum, natural gas, tin, limestone, iron ore, salt,
clay, chalk, gypsum, lead, silica, arable land. Exports: $282 billion
(f.o.b., 2000): manufactured goods, fuels, chemicals; food, beverages, tobacco.
Imports: $324 billion (f.o.b., 2000): manufactured goods, machinery,
fuels; foodstuffs. Major trading partners: EU, U.S., Japan.
Communications:
Telephones: main lines in use: 34.878
million (1997); mobile cellular: 13 million (yearend 1998). Radio broadcast
stations: AM 219, FM 431, shortwave 3 (1998). Radios: 84.5 million
(1997). Television broadcast stations: 228 (plus 3,523 repeaters)
(1995). Televisions: 30.5 million (1997). Internet Service Providers
(ISPs): 245 (2000). Internet users: 19.47 million (2000).
Transportation:
Railways: total: 16,878 km (1996). Highways:
total: 371,603 km; paved: 371,603 km (including 3,303 km of expressways);
unpaved: 0 km (1998 est.). Waterways: 3,200 km. Ports and harbors: Aberdeen,
Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Dover, Falmouth, Felixstowe, Glasgow, Grangemouth,
Hull, Leith, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Peterhead, Plymouth, Portsmouth,
Scapa Flow, Southampton, Sullom Voe, Tees, Tyne. Airports: 489 (2000
est.).
International
disputes: Northern Ireland issue with
Ireland (historic peace agreement signed 10 April 1998); Gibraltar issue with
Spain; Argentina claims Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas); Argentina claims
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; Mauritius and the Seychelles
claim Chagos Archipelago (UK-administered British Indian Ocean Territory);
Rockall continental shelf dispute involving Denmark and Iceland; territorial
claim in Antarctica (British Antarctic Territory) overlaps Argentine claim and
partially overlaps Chilean claim; disputes with Iceland, Denmark, and Ireland
over the Faroe Islands continental shelf boundary outside 200 NM.
DIRECT MEANING OF THE WORD «MONARCHY»
Monarchy,
form of government in which sovereignty is vested in a single person whose
right to rule is generally hereditary and who is empowered to remain in office
for life. The power of this sovereign may vary from the absolute to that
strongly limited by custom or constitution. Monarchy has existed since the
earliest history of humankind and was often established during periods of
external threat or internal crisis because it provided a more efficient focus
of power than aristocracy or democracy, which tended to diffuse power. Most monarchies
appear to have been elective originally, but dynasties early became customary.
In primitive times, divine descent of the monarch was often claimed.
Deification was general in ancient Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia, and it was also practiced during certain periods in ancient Greece and Rome. A more moderate belief arose in Christian Europe in the Middle Ages; it
stated that the monarch was the appointed agent of divine will. This was
symbolized by the coronation of the king by a bishop or the pope, as in the Holy Roman Empire. Although theoretically at the apex of feudal power, the medieval
monarchs were in fact weak and dependent upon the nobility for much of their
power. During the Renaissance and after, there emerged “new monarchs” who broke
the power of the nobility and centralized the state under their own rigid rule.
Notable examples are Henry VII and Henry VIII of England and Louis XIV of France. The 16th and 17th cent. mark the height of absolute monarchy, which found its
theoretical justification in the doctrine of divine right. However, even the powerful monarchs of the 17th
cent. were somewhat limited by custom and constitution as well as by the
delegation of powers to strong bureaucracies. Such limitations were also felt
by the “benevolent despots” of the 18th cent. Changes in intellectual climate,
in the demands made upon government in a secular and commercially expanding
society, and in the social structure, as the bourgeoisie became increasingly powerful, eventually weakened the
institution of monarchy in Europe. The Glorious Revolution in England (1688) and the French Revolution (1789) were important landmarks in the decline and
limitation of monarchical power. Throughout the 19th cent. Royal power was
increasingly reduced by constitutional provisions and parliamentary incursions.
In the 20th cent., monarchs have generally become symbols of national unity,
while real power has been transferred to constitutional assemblies. Over the past
200 years democratic self-government has been established and extended to such
an extent that a true functioning monarchy is a rare occurrence in both East
and West. Among the few remaining are Brunei, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia. Notable constitutional monarchies include Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Thailand.
Constitutional monarchy: System
of government in which a monarch has agreed to share power with a
constitutionally organized government. The monarch may remain the de facto head
of state or may be a purely ceremonial head. The constitution allocates the
rest of the government's power to the legislature and judiciary. Britain became a constitutional monarchy under the Whigs; other constitutional monarchies
include Belgium, Cambodia, Jordan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Thailand.
THE BRITISH CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
"The British
Constitutional Monarchy was the consequence of the Glorious Revolution of 1688,
and was enshrined in the Bill of Rights of 1689. Whereby William and Mary in
accepting the throne, had to consent to govern 'according to the statutes in
parliament on."
A monarch does not have to curry favour for
votes from any section of the community.
A monarch is almost invariably more popular than an
Executive President, who can be elected by less than 50% of the electorate and
may therefore represent less than half the people. In the 1995 French
presidential election the future President Chirac was not the nation's choice
in the first round of voting. In Britain, governments are formed on the basis
of parliamentary seats won. In the 1992 General Election the Conservative Prime
Minister took the office with only 43% of votes cast in England, Scotland and Wales. The Queen however, as hereditary Head of State, remains the
representative of the whole nation.
Elected presidents are concerned more with their own
political futures and power, and as we have seen (in Brazil for example), may
use their temporary tenure to enrich themselves. Monarchs are not subject to
the influences which corrupt short-term presidents. A monarch looks back on
centuries of history and forward to the well being of the entire nation under
his/her heir. Elected presidents in their nature devote much energy to undoing the
achievements of their forebears in order to strengthen the position of their
successors.
A long reigning monarch can put enormous experience at
the disposal of transient political leaders. Since succeeding her father in
1952 Queen Elizabeth has had a number of Prime Ministers, the latest of whom
were not even in Parliament at the time of her accession. An experienced
monarch can act as a brake on over ambitious or misguided politicians, and
encorage others who are less confident. The reality is often the converse of
the theory: the monarch is frequently the Prime Minister's best adviser.
Monarchs, particularly those in Europe are part of an
extended Royal Family, facilitating links between their nations. As Burke observed,
nations touch at their summits. A recent example of this was the attendance of
so many members of Royal Families at the 50th birthday celebrations for Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustav. Swedish newspapers reported that this this was a much better
indication of their closeness to the rest of Europe than any number of
treaties, protocols or directives from the European Union.
A monarch is trained from Birth for the position of
Head of State and even where, as after the abdication of Edward VIII, a younger
brother succeeds, he too has enormous experience of his country, its people and
its government. The people know who will succeed, and this certainly gives a
nation invaluable continuity and stability. This also explains why it is rare
for an unsuitable person to become King. There are no expensive elections as in
the US where, as one pro-Monarchist American says, "we have to elect a new
' Royal Family' every four years." In the French system the President may
be a member of one party, while the Prime Minister is from another, which only
leads to confused governement. In a monarchy there is no such confusion, for
the monarch does not rule in conflict with government but reigns over the whole
nation.
In ceremonial presidencies the Head of State is often
a former politician tainted by, and still in thrall to, his former political
life and loyalties, or an academic or retired diplomat who can never have the
same prestige as a monarch, and who is frequently little known inside the
country, and almost totally unknown outside it. For example, ask a German why
is Britain's Head of State and a high proportion will know it is Queen
Elizabeth II. Ask a Briton, or any Non- German, who is Head of State of Germany?
, and very few will be able to answer correctly.
Aided by his immediate family, a monarch can carry out
a range of duties and public engagements - ceremonial, charitable,
environmental etc. which an Executive President would never have time to do,
and to which a ceremonial President would not add lustre.
A monarch and members of a Royal Family can become
involved in a wide range of issues which are forbidden to politicians. All
parties have vested interests which they cannot ignore. Vernon Bogdanor says in
' The Monarchy and the Constitution' - «A politician must inevitably be a
spokesperson for only part of the nation, not the whole. A politician's motives
will always be suspected. Members of the Royal Family, by contrast, because of
their symbolic position, are able to speak to a much wider constituency than
can be commanded by even the most popular political leader." In a
Republic, then, who is there to speak out on issues where the 'here today, gone
tomorrow' government is constrained from criticising its backers, even though
such criticism is in the national interest.
All nations are made up of families, and it's natural
that a family should be at a nation's head.
While the question of Divine Right is now obsolescent,
the fact that "there's such divinity doth hedge a King" remains true,
and it is interesting to note that even today Kings are able to play a role in
the spiritual life of a nation which presidents seem unable to fulfil.
It has been demonstrated that, even ignoring the
enormous cost of presidential elections, a monarch as head of state is no more
expensive than a president. In Britain many costs, such as the upkeep of the
Royal residencies, are erroneosly thought to be uniquely attributable to the
monarchy, even though the preservation of our heritage would still be
undertaken if the county were a republic! The US government has criticised the
cost to the Brazilian people of maintaining their president.
Even Royal Families which are not reigning are
dedicated to the service of their people, and continue to be regarded as the
symbol of the nation's continuity. Prominent examples are H.R.H. the Duke of
Braganza in Portugal and H.R.H. the County of Paris in France. Royal Families forced to live in exile, such as the Yugoslav and Romanian, are
often promoters of charities formed to help their countries.
KINGS AND QUEENS OF ENGLAND
The history of the English Crown up to the Union of the Crowns in 1603 is long and varied. The concept of a single ruler unifying
different tribes based in England developed in the eighth and ninth centuries in
figures such as Offa and Alfred the Great, who began to create centralised
systems of government. Following the Norman Conquest, the machinery of
government developed further, producing long-lived national institutions
including Parliament.
The Middle Ages saw several fierce contests for the
Crown, culminating in the Wars of the Roses, which lasted for nearly a century.
The conflict was finally ended with the advent of the Tudors, the dynasty which
produced some of England's most successful rulers and a flourishing cultural
Renaissance. The end of the Tudor line with the death of the 'Virgin Queen' in
1603 brought about the Union of the Crowns with Scotland.
THE ANGLO-SAXON KINGS
In the Dark Ages during the fifth and sixth centuries,
communities of peoples in Britain inhabited homelands with ill-defined borders.
Such communities were organised and led by chieftains or kings. Following the
final withdrawal of the Roman legions from the provinces of Britannia in around
408 AD these small kingdoms were left to preserve their own order and to deal
with invaders and waves of migrant peoples such as the Picts from beyond Hadrian's Wall, the Scots from Ireland and Germanic tribes from the continent. (King Arthur,
a larger-than-life figure, has often been cited as a leader of one or more of
these kingdoms during this period, although his name now tends to be used as a
symbol of British resistance against invasion.)
The invading communities overwhelmed or adapted
existing kingdoms and created new ones - for example, the Angles in Mercia and Northumbria. Some British kingdoms initially survived the onslaught, such as
Strathclyde, which was wedged in the north between Pictland and the new
Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria.
By 650 AD, the British Isles were a patchwork of many
kingdoms founded from native or immigrant communities and led by powerful
chieftains or kings. In their personal feuds and struggles between communities
for control and supremacy, a small number of kingdoms became dominant: Bernicia and Deira (which merged to form Northumbria in 651 AD), Lindsey, East Anglia, Mercia, Wessex and Kent. Until the late seventh century, a series of warrior-kings in
turn established their own personal authority over other kings, usually won by
force or through alliances and often cemented by dynastic marriages.
According to the later chronicler Bede, the most
famous of these kings was Ethelberht, king of Kent (reigned c.560-616), who
married Bertha, the Christian daughter of the king of Paris, and who became the
first English king to be converted to Christianity (St Augustine's mission from
the Pope to Britain in 597 during Ethelberht's reign prompted thousands of such
conversions). Ethelberht's law code was the first to be written in any Germanic
language and included 90 laws. His influence extended both north and south of
the river Humber: his nephew became king of the East Saxons and his daughter
married king Edwin of Northumbria (died 633).
In the eighth century, smaller kingdoms in the British Isles continued to fall to more powerful kingdoms, which claimed rights over whole
areas and established temporary primacies: Dalriada in Scotland, Munster and Ulster in Ireland. In England, Mercia and later Wessex came to dominate, giving rise to the start of the monarchy.
Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period the succession was
frequently contested, by both the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and leaders of the
settling Scandinavian communities. The Scandinavian influence was to prove
strong in the early years. It was the threat of invading Vikings which
galvanised English leaders into unifying their forces, and, centuries later,
the Normans who successfully invaded in 1066 were themselves the descendants of
Scandinavian 'Northmen'.
HOUSE OF WESSEX AND ENGLAND
802 – 1066
EGBERT = Redburga
(802–839)
ETHELWULF = Osburga dau. of Oslac of Isle of Wight
(839–855)
ETHELBERHT ALFRED
the Great = Ealhswith
ETHELBALD
(860–866) ETHELRED (871–899)
(855–860) (866–871)
Ecgwyn
= EDWARD THE ELDER= Edgiva
(899–924)
ATHELSTAN
(924–939)
Elgiva =
EDMUND I EDRED
(939–946)
(946–955)
EDWY
Ethelfleda = EDGAR = Elfrida,
dau. of Ordgar, Ealdorman of East Anglia
(955–959)
dau. of (959–975)
Ealdorman
Ordmaer
EDWARD THE MARTYR
(975–979)
Elfgifu = ETHELRED II THE UNREADY = Emma
(979–1016)
(later
(deposed
1013/14) married
CANUTE)
EDMUND II IRONSIDE
(Apr.–Nov.1016)
Godwin = Gytha
EDWARD THE = Eadgyth
HAROLD II
CONFESSOR (Edith)
(Jan.–Oct.1066)
(1042–1066)
EGBERT (802-39 AD)
Known as the first King of All England, he was forced
into exile at the court of Charlemagne, by the powerful Offa, King of Mercia.
Egbert returned to England in 802 and was recognized as king of Wessex. He defeated the rival Mercians at the battle of Ellendun in 825. In 829, the
Northumbrians accepted his overlordship and he was proclaimed
"Bretwalda" or sole ruler of Britain.
ÆTHELWULF (839-55 AD)
Æthelwulf
was the son of Egbert and a sub-king of Kent. He assumed the throne of Wessex upon his father's death in 839. His reign is characterized by the usual Viking
invasions and repulsions common to all English rulers of the time, but the
making of war was not his chief claim to fame. Æthelwulf is remembered,
however dimly, as a highly religious man who cared about the establishment and
preservation of the church. He was also a wealthy man and controlled vast
resources. Out of these resources, he gave generously, to Rome and to religious
houses that were in need.
He was an only child, but had fathered five sons, by
his first wife, Osburga. He recognized that there could be difficulties with
contention over the succession. He devised a scheme which would guarantee
(insofar as it was possible to do so) that each child would have his turn on
the throne without having to worry about rival claims from his siblings.
Æthelwulf provided that the oldest living child would succeed to the
throne and would control all the resources of the crown, without having them
divided among the others, so that he would have adequate resources to rule.
That he was able to provide for the continuation of his dynasty is a matter of
record, but he was not able to guarantee familial harmony with his plan. This
is proved by what we know of the foul plottings of his son, Æthelbald,
while Æthelwulf was on pilgrimage to Rome in 855.
Æthelwulf was a wise and capable ruler, whose
vision made possible the beneficial reign of his youngest son, Alfred the
Great.
ÆTHELBALD (855-8 (subking), 858-60)
While his father, Æthelwulf, was on pilgrimage
to Rome in 855, Æthelbald plotted with the Bishop of Sherbourne and the
ealdorman of Somerset against him. The specific details of the plot are
unknown, but upon his return from Rome, Æthelwulf found his direct
authority limited to the sub-kingdom of Kent, while Æthelbald controlled Wessex.
Æthelwulf died in 858, and full control passed
to Æthelbald. Perhaps Æthelbald's premature power grab was
occasioned by impatience, or greed, or lack of confidence in his father's
succession plans. Whatever the case, he did not live long to enjoy it. He died
in 860, passing the throne to his brother, Æthelbert, just as
Æthelwulf had planned.
ÆTHELBERT (860-66 AD)
Very little is
known about Æthelbert, who took his rightful place in the line of
succession to the throne of Wessex at around 30 years of age. Like all other
rulers of his day, he had to contend with Viking raids on his territories and
even had to battle them in his capital city of Winchester. Apparently, his
military leadership was adequate, since, on this occasion, the Vikings were cut
off on their retreat to the coast and were slaughtered, according to a
contemporary source, in a "bloody battle."
ÆTHELRED I (866-71 AD)
Anglo-Saxon king of Wessex, and son of King
Æthelwulf, who ruled England during a time of great pressure from the
invading Danes. He was an affable man, a devoutly religious man and the older
brother of Alfred the Great, his second-in-command in the resistance against
the invaders. Together, they defeated the Danish kings Bagseg and Halfdan at
the battle of Ashdown in 870.
ALFRED «THE GREAT» (871-899)
Born at Wantage, Berkshire, in 849, Alfred was the
fifth son of Aethelwulf, king of the West Saxons. At their father's behest and
by mutual agreement, Alfred's elder brothers succeeded to the kingship in turn,
rather than endanger the kingdom by passing it to under-age children at a time
when the country was threatened by worsening Viking raids from Denmark.
Since the 790s, the Vikings had been using fast mobile
armies, numbering thousands of men embarked in shallow-draught longships, to
raid the coasts and inland waters of England for plunder. Such raids were
evolving into permanent Danish settlements; in 867, the Vikings seized York and established their own kingdom in the southern part of Northumbria. The Vikings
overcame two other major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, East Anglia and Mercia, and their kings were either tortured to death or fled. Finally, in 870 the Danes
attacked the only remaining independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Wessex, whose forces were commanded by King Aethelred and his younger brother Alfred. At
the battle of Ashdown in 871, Alfred routed the Viking army in a fiercely
fought uphill assault. However, further defeats followed for Wessex and Alfred's brother died.
As king of Wessex at the age of 21, Alfred (reigned
871-99) was a strongminded but highly strung battle veteran at the head of
remaining resistance to the Vikings in southern England. In early 878, the
Danes led by King Guthrum seized Chippenham in Wiltshire in a lightning strike
and used it as a secure base from which to devastate Wessex. Local people
either surrendered or escaped (Hampshire people fled to the Isle of Wight), and
the West Saxons were reduced to hit and run attacks seizing provisions when
they could. With only his royal bodyguard, a small army of thegns (the king's
followers) and Aethelnoth ealdorman of Somerset as his ally, Alfred withdrew to
the Somerset tidal marshes in which he had probably hunted as a youth. (It was
during this time that Alfred, in his preoccupation with the defence of his
kingdom, allegedly burned some cakes which he had been asked to look after; the
incident was a legend dating from early twelfth century chroniclers.)
A resourceful fighter, Alfred reassessed his strategy
and adopted the Danes' tactics by building a fortified base at Athelney in the Somerset marshes and summoning a mobile army of men from Wiltshire, Somerset and part of
Hampshire to pursue guerrilla warfare against the Danes. In May 878, Alfred's
army defeated the Danes at the battle of Edington. According to his
contemporary biographer Bishop Asser, 'Alfred attacked the whole pagan army
fighting ferociously in dense order, and by divine will eventually won the
victory, made great slaughter among them, and pursued them to their fortress
(Chippenham) ... After fourteen days the pagans were brought to the extreme
depths of despair by hunger, cold and fear, and they sought peace'. This
unexpected victory proved to be the turning point in Wessex's battle for
survival.
Realising that he could not drive the Danes out of the
rest of England, Alfred concluded peace with them in the treaty of Wedmore.
King Guthrum was converted to Christianity with Alfred as godfather and many of
the Danes returned to East Anglia where they settled as farmers. In 886, Alfred
negotiated a partition treaty with the Danes, in which a frontier was
demarcated along the Roman Watling Street and northern and eastern England came under the jurisdiction of the Danes - an area known as 'Danelaw'. Alfred
therefore gained control of areas of West Mercia and Kent which had been beyond
the boundaries of Wessex. To consolidate alliances against the Danes, Alfred
married one of his daughters, Aethelflaed, to the ealdorman of Mercia -Alfred himself had married Eahlswith, a Mercian noblewoman - and another daughter,
Aelfthryth, to the count of Flanders, a strong naval power at a time when the
Vikings were settling in eastern England.
The Danish threat remained, and Alfred reorganised the
Wessex defences in recognition that efficient defence and economic prosperity
were interdependent. First, he organised his army (the thegns, and the existing
militia known as the fyrd) on a rota basis, so he could raise a 'rapid reaction
force' to deal with raiders whilst still enabling his thegns and peasants to
tend their farms.
Second, Alfred started a building programme of
well-defended settlements across southern England. These were fortified market
places ('borough' comes from the Old English burh, meaning fortress); by
deliberate royal planning, settlers received plots and in return manned the
defences in times of war. (Such plots in London under Alfred's rule in the 880s
shaped the streetplan which still exists today between Cheapside and the Thames.) This obligation required careful recording in what became known as 'the Burghal
Hidage', which gave details of the building and manning of Wessex and Mercian burhs
according to their size, the length of their ramparts and the number of men
needed to garrison them. Centred round Alfred's royal palace in Winchester, this network of burhs with strongpoints on the main river routes was such that
no part of Wessex was more than 20 miles from the refuge of one of these
settlements. Together with a navy of new fast ships built on Alfred's orders,
southern England now had a defence in depth against Danish raiders.
Alfred's concept of kingship extended beyond the
administration of the tribal kingdom of Wessex into a broader context. A
religiously devout and pragmatic man who learnt Latin in his late thirties, he
recognised that the general deterioration in learning and religion caused by
the Vikings' destruction of monasteries (the centres of the rudimentary
education network) had serious implications for rulership. For example, the
poor standards in Latin had led to a decline in the use of the charter as an
instrument of royal government to disseminate the king's instructions and
legislation. In one of his prefaces, Alfred wrote 'so general was its [Latin]
decay in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could
understand their rituals in English or translate a letter from Latin into
English ... so few that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to the throne.'
To improve literacy, Alfred arranged, and took part
in, the translation (by scholars from Mercia) from Latin into Anglo-Saxon of a
handful of books he thought it 'most needful for men to know, and to bring it
to pass ... if we have the peace, that all the youth now in England ... may be
devoted to learning'. These books covered history, philosophy and Gregory the
Great's 'Pastoral Care' (a handbook for bishops), and copies of these books
were sent to all the bishops of the kingdom. Alfred was patron of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (which was copied and supplemented up to 1154), a
patriotic history of the English from the Wessex viewpoint designed to inspire
its readers and celebrate Alfred and his monarchy.
Like other West Saxon kings, Alfred established a
legal code; he assembled the laws of Offa and other predecessors, and of the
kingdoms of Mercia and Kent, adding his own administrative regulations to form
a definitive body of Anglo-Saxon law. 'I ... collected these together and
ordered to be written many of them which our forefathers observed, those which
I liked; and many of those which I did not like I rejected with the advice of
my councillors ... For I dared not presume to set in writing at all many of my
own, because it was unknown to me what would please those who should come after
us ... Then I ... showed those to all my councillors, and they then said that
they were all pleased to observe them' (Laws of Alfred, c.885-99).
By the 890s, Alfred's charters and coinage (which he
had also reformed, extending its minting to the burhs he had founded) referred
to him as 'king of the English', and Welsh kings sought alliances with him.
Alfred died in 899, aged 50, and was buried in Winchester, the burial place of
the West Saxon royal family.
By stopping the Viking advance and consolidating his
territorial gains, Alfred had started the process by which his successors
eventually extended their power over the other Anglo-Saxon kings; the ultimate
unification of Anglo-Saxon England was to be led by Wessex. It is for his
valiant defence of his kingdom against a stronger enemy, for securing peace
with the Vikings and for his farsighted reforms in the reconstruction of Wessex
and beyond, that Alfred - alone of all the English kings and queens - is known
as 'the Great'.
EDWARD
«THE ELDER» (899-924)
Well-trained by Alfred, his son Edward 'the Elder'
(reigned 899-924) was a bold soldier who defeated the Danes in Northumbria at Tettenhall in 910 and was acknowledged by the Viking kingdom of York. The kings of Strathclyde and the Scots submitted to Edward in 921. By military success
and patient planning, Edward spread English influence and control. Much of this
was due to his alliance with his formidable sister Aethelflaed, who was married
to the ruler of Mercia and seems to have governed that kingdom after her
husband's death.
Edward was able to establish an administration for the
kingdom of England, whilst obtaining the allegiance of Danes, Scots and
Britons. Edward died in 924, and he was buried in the New Minster which he had
had completed at Winchester. Edward was twice married, but it is possible that
his eldest son Athelstan was the son of a mistress.
ATHELSTAN (924-939)
Edward's heir
Athelstan (reigned 925-39) was also a distinguished and audacious soldier who
pushed the boundaries of the kingdom to their furthest extent yet. In 927-8,
Athelstan took York from the Danes; he forced the submission of king
Constantine of Scotland and of the northern kings; all five Welsh kings agreed
to pay a huge annual tribute (reportedly including 25,000 oxen), and Athelstan
eliminated opposition in Cornwall.
The battle of Brunanburh in 937, in which Athelstan
led a force drawn from Britain and defeated an invasion by the king of Scotland in alliance with the Welsh and Danes from Dublin, earned him recognition by lesser
kings in Britain.
Athelstan's law codes strengthened royal control over
his large kingdom; currency was regulated to control silver's weight and to
penalise fraudsters. Buying and selling was mostly confined to the burghs,
encouraging town life; areas of settlement in the midlands and Danish towns
were consolidated into shires. Overseas, Athelstan built alliances by marrying
four of his half-sisters to various rulers in Western Europe.
He also had extensive cultural and religious contacts;
as an enthusiastic and discriminating collector of works of art and religious
relics, he gave away much of his collection to his followers and to churches
and bishops in order to retain their support.
Athelstan died at the height of his power and was
buried at Malmesbury; a church charter of 934 described him as 'King of the
English, elevated by the right hand of the Almighty ... to the Throne of the
whole Kingdom of Britain'. Athelstan died childless.
EDMUND I (939-46)
Son of Edward the Elder, succeeded his half-brother,
Æthelstan, with whom he had fought at Brunanburh. Combated the Norse
Vikings in Northumbria and subdued them in Cumbria and Strathclyde. He
entrusted these lands to an ally, Malcolm I of Scotland. Edmund met his death
when he was killed at Pucklechurch, in Gloucestershire, by a robber.
EADRED (946-55)
King of Wessex and acknowledged as overlord of Mercia, the Danelaw and Northumbria. A challenge to Eadred, which serves to illustrate one
of his chief qualities, developed in the north, in the early 950's. Eric
Bloodaxe, an aptly named, ferocious, Norse Viking who had been deposed by his
own people, established himself as king of Northumbria at York, apparently with
the fearful acquiescence of the Northumbrians. Eadred responded by marching
north with a considerable force to meet the threat. He proceeded to ravage the
Norse-held territories, then moved back to the south. He was attacked on the
way home by Eric's forces. Eadred was so enraged that he threatened to go back
to Northumbria and ravage the entire land.
This prospect frightened the already frightened
Northumbrians into abandoning Eric Bloodaxe. It must be that they viewed Eadred
as more formidable than a bloodthirsty Viking, who had been thrown out of a
society known for its bloodthirstiness, because he was too bloodthirsty and tyrannical
for them. In any case, according to the "AngloSaxon Chronicle",
"the Northumbrians expelled Eric."
As to his personal side, William of Malmesbury
provides some illumination. He says that Eadred was afflicted with some
lingering physical malady, since he was, "constantly oppressed by
sickness, and of so weak a digestion as to be unable to swallow more than the
juices of the food he had masticated, to the great annoyance of his
guests." Regarding his spiritual side, apparently the pillaging, ravaging
and laying waste that he did, had no deleterious effects on him. As Malmesbury
states, he devoted his life to God, "endured with patience his frequent
bodily pains, prolonged his prayers and made his palace altogether the school
of virtue." He died while still a young man, as had so many of the kings
of Wessex, "accompanied with the utmost grief of men but joy of
angels."
EADWIG (EDWY) (955-59 AD)
On the death of Eadred, who had no children, Eadwig
was chosen to be king since he was the oldest of the children in the natural
line of the House of Wessex. He became king at 16 and displayed some of the
tendencies one could expect in one so young, royalty or not. Historians have
not treated Eadwig especially well, and it is unfortunate for him that he ran
afoul of the influential Bishop Dunstan (friend and advisor to the recently
deceased king, Eadred, future Archbishop of Canterbury and future saint), early
in his reign. An incident, which occurred on the day of Eadwig's consecration
as king, purportedly, illustrates the character of the young king. According to
the report of the reliable William of Malmesbury, all the dignitaries and
officials of the kingdom were meeting to discuss state business, when the
absence of the new king was noticed. Dunstan was dispatched, along with another
bishop, to find the missing youth. He was found with his mind on matters other
than those of state, in the company of the daughter of a noble woman of the
kingdom. Malmesbury writes, Dunstan, " regardless of the royal indignation,
dragged the lascivious boy from the chamber and...compelling him to repudiate
the strumpet made him his enemy forever." The record of this incident was
picked up by future monastic chroniclers and made to be the definitive word on
the character of Eadwig, mainly because of St. Dunstan's role in it.
Dunstan was, after that incident, never exactly a
favorite of Eadwig's, and it may be fair to say that Eadwig even hated Dunstan,
for he apparently exiled him soon after this. Eadwig went on to marry
Ælgifu, the girl with whom he was keeping company at the time of
Dunstan's intrusion. For her part, "the strumpet" was eventually
referred to as among "the most illustrious of women", and Eadwig, in
his short reign, was generous in making grants to the church and other
religious institutions. He died, possibly of the Wessex family ailment, when he
was only 20.
EDGAR (959-975)
Edgar, king in Mercia and the Danelaw from 957, succeeded his brother as king of the English on Edwy's
death in 959 - a death which probably prevented civil war breaking out between
the two brothers. Edgar was a firm and capable ruler whose power was
acknowledged by other rulers in Britain, as well as by Welsh and Scottish
kings. Edgar's late coronation in 973 at Bath was the first to be recorded in
some detail; his queen Aelfthryth was the first consort to be crowned queen of England.
Edgar was the patron of a great monastic revival which
owed much to his association with Archbishop Dunstan. New bishoprics were
created, Benedictine monasteries were reformed and old monastic sites were
re-endowed with royal grants, some of which were of land recovered from the
Vikings.
In the 970s and in the absence of Viking attacks,
Edgar - a stern judge - issued laws which for the first time dealt with Northumbria (parts of which were in the Danelaw) as well as Wessex and Mercia. Edgar's coinage was uniform throughout the kingdom. A more united kingdom based on
royal justice and order was emerging; the Monastic Agreement (c.970) praised
Edgar as 'the glorious, by the grace of Christ illustrious king of the English
and of the other peoples dwelling within the bounds of the island of Britain'. After his death on 8 July 975, Edgar was buried at Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset.
EDWARD II «THE MARTYR» (975-979)
The
sudden death of Edgar at the age of 33 led to a succession dispute between
rival factions supporting his sons Edward and Ethelred. The elder son Edward
was murdered in 978 at Corfe Castle, Dorset, by his seven-year-old
half-brother's supporters.
ETHELRED II «THE UNREADY» (979-1013 AND 1014-1016)
Ethelred, the younger son of Edgar, became king at the
age of seven following the murder of his half-brother Edward II in 978 at Corfe Castle, Dorset, by Edward's own supporters.
For the rest of Ethelred's rule (reigned 978-1016),
his brother became a posthumous rallying point for political unrest; a hostile
Church transformed Edward into a royal martyr. Known as the Un-raed or
'Unready' (meaning 'no counsel', or that he was unwise), Ethelred failed to win
or retain the allegiance of many of his subjects. In 1002, he ordered the
massacre of all Danes in England to eliminate potential treachery.
Not being an able soldier, Ethelred defended the
country against increasingly rapacious Viking raids from the 980s onwards by
diplomatic alliance with the duke of Normandy in 991 (he later married the
duke's daughter Emma) and by buying off renewed attacks by the Danes with money
levied through a tax called the Danegeld. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1006 was
dismissive: 'in spite of it all, the Danish army went about as it pleased'. By
1012, 48,000 pounds of silver was being paid in Danegeld to Danes camped in London.
In 1013, Ethelred fled to Normandy when the powerful
Viking Sweyn of Denmark dispossessed him. Ethelred returned to rule after
Sweyn's death in 1014, but died himself in 1016.
SWEYN (1013-1014)
The son of a Danish king, Sweyn 'Forkbeard' began
conquering territory in England in 1003, effectively devastating much of
southern and midland England. The English nobility became so disillusioned with
their existing king, Ethelred 'The Unready', that they acknowledged Sweyn as
king in 1013. Sweyn's reign was short, as he died in 1014, but his son Canute
the Great soon returned and reclaimed control of England.
EDMUND II, IRONSIDE (1016)
Edmund was King of England for only a few months.
After the death of his father, Æthelred II, in April 1016, Edmund led the
defense of the city of London against the invading Knut Sveinsson (Canute), and
was proclaimed king by the Londoners. Meanwhile, the Witan (Council), meeting
at Southampton, chose Canute as King. After a series of inconclusive military
engagements, in which Edmund performed brilliantly and earned the nickname
"Ironside", he defeated the Danish forces at Oxford, Kent, but was routed by Canute's forces at Ashingdon, Essex. A subsequent peace agreement was made,
with Edmund controlling Wessex and Canute controlling Mercia and Northumbria. It was also agreed that whoever survived the other would take
control of the whole realm. Unfortunately for Edmund, he died in November,
1016, transferring the Kingship of All England completely to Canute.
CANUTE «THE GREAT» (1016-1035)
Son of Sweyn,
Canute became undisputed King of England in 1016, and his rivals (Ethelred's
surviving sons and Edmund's son) fled abroad. In 1018, the last Danegeld of
82,500 pounds was paid to Canute. Ruthless but capable, Canute consolidated his
position by marrying Ethelred's widow Emma (Canute's first English partner -
the Church did not recognise her as his wife - was set aside, later appointed
regent of Norway). During his reign, Canute also became King of Denmark and Norway; his inheritance and formidable personality combined to make him overlord of a huge
northern empire.
During his inevitable absences in Scandinavia, Canute used powerful English and
Danish earls to assist in England's government - English law and methods of
government remained unchanged.
A second-generation Christian for reasons of politics
as well as faith, Canute went on pilgrimage to Rome in 1027-8. (It was
allegedly Christian humility which made him reject his courtiers' flattery by
demonstrating that even he could not stop the waves; later hostile chroniclers
were to claim it showed madness.)
Canute was buried at Winchester. Given that there was
no political or governmental unity within his empire, it failed to survive
owing to discord between his sons by two different queens - Harold Harefoot
(reigned 1035-40) and Harthacnut (reigned 1040-42) - and the factions led by
the semi-independent Earls of Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex.
HAROLD HAREFOOT (1035-1040)
Harold Harefoot was the son of Canute and his first
wife, Elfgifu. The brothers began by sharing the kingdom of England after their father's death - Harold Harefoot becoming king in Mercia and Northumbria, and Harthacanute king of Wessex. During the absence of Hardicanute
in Denmark, his other kingdom, Harold Harefoot became effective sole ruler. On
his death in 1040, the kingdom of England fell to Hardicanute alone.
HARDICANUTE (1035-1042)
Harthacnut was the son of Canute and his second wife,
Emma, the widow of Ethelred II. His father intended Hardicanute to become king
of the English in preference to his elder brother Harold Harefoot, but he
nearly lost his chance of this when he became preoccupied with affairs in Denmark, of which he was also king. Instead, Canute's eldest son, Harold Harefoot, became
king of England as a whole. In 1039 Hardicanute eventually set sail for England, arriving to find his brother dead and himself king.
EDWARD III, THE CONFESSOR (1042-66 AD)
The penultimate Anglo-Saxon king, Edward was the
oldest son of Æthelred II and Emma. He had gone to Normandy in 1013, when
his father and mother had fled from England. He stayed there during the reign
of Canute and, at his death in 1035, led an abortive attempt to capture the
crown for himself. He was recalled, for some reason, to the court of Hardicanute,
his half-brother.
Canute had placed the local control of the shires into
the hands of several powerful earls: Leofric of Mercia (Lady Godiva's husband),
Siward of Northumbria and Godwin of Wessex, the most formidable of all. Through
Godwin's influence, Edward took the throne at the untimely death of Hardicanute
in 1042. In 1045, he married Godwin's only daughter, Edith.
Resulting from the connections made during Edward's
years in Normandy, he surrounded himself with his Norman favorites and was unduly
influenced by them. This Norman "affinity" produced great displeasure
among the Saxon nobles. The anti-Norman faction was led by (who else?) Godwin
of Wessex and his son, Harold Godwinsson, took every available opportunity to
undermine the kings favorites. Edward sought to revenge himself on Godwin by
insulting his own wife and Godwin's daughter, Edith, and confining her to the
monastery of Wherwell. Disputes also arose over the issue of royal patronage
and Edward's inclination to reward his Norman friends.
A Norman, Robert Champart, who had been Bishop of
London, was made Archbishop of Canterbury by Edward in 1051, a promotion that
displeased Godwin immensely. The Godwins were banished from the kingdom after
staging an unsuccessful rebellion against the king but returned, landing an
invasionary force in the south of England in 1052. They received great popular
support, and in the face of this, the king was forced to restore the Godwins to
favor in 1053.
Edward's greatest achievement was the construction of
a new cathedral, where virtually all English monarchs from William the
Conqueror onward would be crowned. It was determined that the minster should
not be built in London, and so a place was found to the west of the city (hence
"Westminster"). The new church was consecrated at Christmas, 1065,
but Edward could not attend due to illness.
On his deathbed, Edward named Harold as his successor,
instead of the legitimate heir, his grandson, Edgar the Ætheling. The
question of succession had been an issue for some years and remained unsettled
at Edward's death in January, 1066. It was neatly resolved, however, by William
the Conqueror, just nine months later.
There is some question as to what kind of person
Edward was. After his death, he was the object of a religious cult and was
canonized in 1161, but that could be viewed as a strictly political move. Some
say, probably correctly, that he was a weak, but violent man and that his
reputation for saintliness was overstated, possibly a sham perpetrated by the
monks of Westminster in the twelfth century. Others seem to think that he was
deeply religious man and a patient and peaceable ruler.
HAROLD II (1066)
On Edward's death,
the King's Council (the Witenagemot) confirmed Edward's brother-in-law Harold,
Earl of Wessex, as King. With no royal blood, and fearing rival claims from
William Duke of Normandy and the King of Norway, Harold had himself crowned in
Westminster Abbey on 6 January 1066, the day after Edward's death. During his
brief reign, Harold showed he was an outstanding commander.
In September, Harald Hardrada of Norway (aided by Harold's alienated brother Tostig, Earl of Northumbria) invaded England and was defeated by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York. Hardrada's
army had invaded using over 300 ships; so many were killed that only 25 ships
were needed to transport the survivors home.
Meanwhile, William, Duke of Normandy (who claimed that
Harold had acknowledged him in 1064 as Edward's successor) had landed in Sussex. Harold rushed south and, on 14 October 1066, his army of some 7,000 infantry was
defeated on the field of Senlac near Hastings. Harold was hit in the eye by an
arrow and cut down by Norman swords.
An abbey was later built, in 1070, to fulfil a vow
made by William I, and its high altar was placed on the spot where Harold fell.
The ruins of Battle Abbey still remain with a stone slab marking where Harold
died.
THE NORMANS
The Normans came to govern as a result of one of the
most famous battles in English history, the Battle of Hastings in 1066. From
1066 to 1154 four kings ruled. The Domesday Book, that great source of English
landholding, was published, the forests were extended, the Exchequer was
founded and a start was made on the Tower of London. In religious affairs, the
Gregorian reform movement gathered pace and forced concessions, while the
machinery of government developed to support the country while Henry was
fighting abroad. Meanwhile, the social landscape was altered, as the Norman aristocracy
came to prominence. Many of the nobles struggled to keep a hold on both Normandy and England, as divided rule meant the threat of conflict.
This was the case when William the Conqueror died. His
eldest son, Robert, became Duke of Normandy, while the next youngest, William,
became king of England. Their younger brother Henry would become king on
William II's death. The uneasy divide continued until Henry captured and
imprisoned his elder brother.
The question of the succession continued to weigh heavily
over the remainder of the period. Henry's son died, and his nominated heir
Matilda was denied the throne by her cousin, Henry's nephew, Stephen. There
then followed a period of civil war. Matilda married Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou, who took control of Normandy. The duchy was therefore separated from England once again.
A compromise was eventually reached whereby the son of
Matilda and Geoffrey would be heir to the English crown, while Stephen's son
would inherit his baronial lands. All this meant that in 1154 Henry II would
ascend to the throne as the first undisputed King in over 100 years - proof of
the dynastic uncertainty of the Norman period.
THE
CONTINENTAL DYNASTIES
1066 - 1216
HAROLD BLUETOOTH,
King of Denmark
Gunhilda of = SWEYN
FORKBEARD Styrbjorn
= Thyra
Poland
Richard I, Duke of
Sweden
of Normandy
Thorgils
Sprakalegg
Elgiva of (1) = CANUTE = (2) Emma,
widow of Judith = Richard II,
Northampton (1016–1035) ATHELRED II daughter
of Duke of Gytha =
Godwin,
Conan I Normandy
Earl of
Wessex
HAROLD HARDICANUTE
HAREFOOT (1040–1042)
Robert I = Herlève
(1035–1040) Duke
of
Normandy
HAROLD II EDWARD THE=Eadgyth
(1066)
CONFESSOR
(1042–1066)
WILLIAM I = Matilda, dau. of
THE CONQUEROR Baldwin V, Count
(1066–1087) of Flanders
WILLIAM
II Adela
= Stephen, Adela of = HENRY I,
(1087–1100) Count
of Louvain (1100–1135)
Blois
STEPHEN Matilda = Geoffrey, Count
(1135–1154)
of Anjou and Maine
HENRY II = Eleanor
of
(1154–1189) Aquitaine, divorced
wife
of LOUIS VII,
King
of France
RICHARD I JOHN = Isabella, dau. of
(1189–1199) (1199–1216) Count
of
Angoulême
HENRY III
(1216–1272)
WILLIAM I «THE CONQUEROR» (1066-1087)
Born around 1028, William was the
illegitimate son of Duke Robert I of Normandy, and Herleve (also known as
Arlette), daughter of a tanner in Falaise. Known as 'William the Bastard' to
his contemporaries, his illegitimacy shaped his career when he was young. On
his father's death in 1035, William was recognised by his family as the heir -
an exception to the general rule that illegitimacy barred succession. His great
uncle looked after the Duchy during William's minority, and his overlord, King
Henry I of France, knighted him at the age of 15. From 1047 onwards, William
successfully dealt with rebellion inside Normandy involving his kinsmen and
threats from neighbouring nobles, including attempted invasions by his former
ally King Henry I of France in 1054 (the French forces were defeated at the
Battle of Mortemer) and 1057. William's military successes and reputation
helped him to negotiate his marriage to Mathilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V
of Flanders. At the time of his invasion of England, William was a very
experienced and ruthless military commander, ruler and administrator who had
unified Normandy and inspired fear and respect outside his duchy. William's
claim to the English throne was based on his assertion that, in 1051, Edward
the Confessor had promised him the throne (he was a distant cousin) and that
Harold II - having sworn in 1064 to uphold William's right to succeed to that
throne - was therefore a usurper. Furthermore, William had the support of
Emperor Henry IV and papal approval. William took seven months to prepare his
invasion force, using some 600 transport ships to carry around 7,000 men
(including 2,000-3,000 cavalry) across the Channel. On 28 September 1066, with a favourable wind, William landed unopposed at Pevensey and, within a few
days, raised fortifications at Hastings. Having defeated an earlier invasion by
the King of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York in late
September, Harold undertook a forced march south, covering 250 miles in some
nine days to meet the new threat, gathering inexperienced reinforcements to
replenish his exhausted veterans as he marched. At the Battle of Senlac (near Hastings) on 14 October, Harold's weary and under-strength army faced William's cavalry
(part of the forces brought across the Channel) supported by archers. Despite
their exhaustion, Harold's troops were equal in number (they included the best
infantry in Europe equipped with their terrible two-handled battle axes) and
they had the battlefield advantage of being based on a ridge above the Norman
positions. The first uphill assaults by the Normans failed and a rumour spread
that William had been killed; William rode among the ranks raising his helmet
to show he was still alive. The battle was close-fought: a chronicler described
the Norman counter-attacks and the Saxon defence as 'one side attacking with
all mobility, the other withstanding as though rooted to the soil'. Three of
William's horses were killed under him. William skilfully co-ordinated his
archers and cavalry, both of which the English forces lacked. During a Norman
assault, Harold was killed - hit by an arrow and then mowed down by the sword
of a mounted knight. Two of his brothers were also killed. The demoralised
English forces fled. (In 1070, as penance, William had an abbey built on the
site of the battle, with the high altar occupying the spot where Harold fell.
The ruins of Battle Abbey, and the town of Battle, which grew up around it,
remain.) William was crowned on Christmas Day 1066 in Westminster Abbey. Three
months later, he was confident enough to return to Normandy leaving two joint
regents (one of whom was his half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, who was later
to commission the Bayeux Tapestry) behind to administer the kingdom. However,
it took William six years to consolidate his conquest, and even then he had to
face constant plotting and fighting on both sides of the Channel. In 1068,
Harold's sons raided the south-west coast of England (dealt with by William's
local commanders), and there were uprisings in the Welsh Marches, Devon and Cornwall. William appointed earls who, in Wales and in all parts of the kingdom,
undertook to guard the threatened frontiers and maintain internal security in
return for land. In 1069, the Danes, in alliance with Prince Edgar the
Aetheling (Ethelred's great-grandson) and other English nobles, invaded the
north and took York. Taking personal charge, and pausing only to deal with the
rising at Stafford, William drove the Danes back to their ships on the Humber. In a harsh campaign lasting into 1070, William systematically devastated Mercia and Northumbria to deprive the Danes of their supplies and prevent recovery of
English resistance. Churches and monasteries were burnt, and agricultural land
was laid to waste, creating a famine for the unarmed and mostly peasant
population which lasted at least nine years. Although the Danes were bribed to
leave the north, King Sweyn of Denmark and his ships threatened the east coast
(in alliance with various English, including Hereward the Wake) until a treaty
of peace was concluded in June 1070. Further north, where the boundary with Scotland was unclear, King Malcolm III was encroaching into England. Yet again, William
moved swiftly and moved land and sea forces north to invade Scotland. The Treaty of Abernethy in 1072 marked a truce, which was reinforced by Malcolm's
eldest son being accepted as a hostage. William consolidated his conquest by
starting a castle-building campaign in strategic areas. Originally these
castles were wooden towers on earthen 'mottes' (mounds) with a bailey
(defensive area) surrounded by earth ramparts, but many were later rebuilt in
stone. By the end of William's reign over 80 castles had been built throughout
his kingdom, as a permanent reminder of the new Norman feudal order. William's
wholesale confiscation of land from English nobles and their heirs (many nobles
had died at the battles of Stamford Bridge and Senlac) enabled him to recruit
and retain an army, by demanding military duties in exchange for land tenancy
granted to Norman, French and Flemish allies. He created up to 180 'honours'
(lands scattered through shires, with a castle as the governing centre), and in
return had some 5,000 knights at his disposal to repress rebellions and pursue
campaigns; the knights were augmented by mercenaries and English infantry from
the Anglo-Saxon militia, raised from local levies. William also used the fyrd,
the royal army - a military arrangement which had survived the Conquest. The
King's tenants-in-chief in turn created knights under obligation to them and
for royal duties (this was called subinfeudation), with the result that private
armies centred around private castles were created - these were to cause future
problems of anarchy for unfortunate or weak kings. By the end of William's
reign, a small group of the King's tenants had acquired about half of England's landed wealth. Only two Englishmen still held large estates directly from the
King. A foreign aristocracy had been imposed as the new governing class. The
expenses of numerous campaigns, together with an economic slump (caused by the
shifts in landed wealth, and the devastation of northern England for military and political reasons), prompted William to order a full-scale
investigation into the actual and potential wealth of the kingdom to maximise
tax revenues. The Domesday survey was prompted by ignorance of the state of
land holding in England, as well as the result of the costs of defence measures
in England and renewed war in France. The scope, speed, efficiency and
completion of this survey was remarkable for its time and resulted in the
two-volume Domesday Book of 1086, which still exists today. William needed to
ensure the direct loyalty of his feudal tenants. The 1086 Oath of Salisbury was
a gathering of William's 170 tenants-in-chief and other important landowners
who took an oath of fealty to William. William's reach extended elsewhere into
the Church and the legal system. French superseded the vernacular
(Anglo-Saxon). Personally devout, William used his bishops to carry out
administrative duties. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1070, was a
first-class administrator who assisted in government when William was absent in
France, and who reorganised the Church in England. Having established the
primacy of his archbishopric over that of York, and with William's approval,
Lanfranc excommunicated rebels, and set up Church or spiritual courts to deal
with ecclesiastical matters. Lanfranc also replaced English bishops and abbots
(some of whom had already been removed by the Council of Winchester under papal
authority) with Norman or French clergy to reduce potential political
resistance. In addition, Canterbury and Durham Cathedrals were rebuilt and some
of the bishops' sees were moved to urban centres. At his coronation, William
promised to uphold existing laws and customs. The Anglo-Saxon shire courts and
'hundred' courts (which administered defence and tax, as well as justice
matters) remained intact, as did regional variations and private Anglo-Saxon
jurisdictions. To strengthen royal justice, William relied on sheriffs
(previously smaller landowners, but replaced by influential nobles) to
supervise the administration of justice in existing county courts, and sent
members of his own court to conduct important trials. However, the introduction
of Church courts, the mix of Norman/Roman law and the differing customs led to
a continuing complex legal framework. More severe forest laws reinforced William's
conversion of the New Forest into a vast Royal deer reserve. These laws caused
great resentment, and to English chroniclers the New Forest became a symbol of
William's greed. Nevertheless the King maintained peace and order. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1087 declared 'he was a very stern and violent man, so
no one dared do anything contrary to his will ... Amongst other things the good
security he made in this country is not to be forgotten.' William spent the
last months of his reign in Normandy, fighting a counter-offensive in the
French Vexin territory against King Philip's annexation of outlying Normandy territory. Before his death on 9 September 1087, William divided his
'Anglo-Norman' state between his sons. (The scene was set for centuries of
expensive commitments by successive English monarchs to defend their inherited
territories in France.) William bequeathed Normandy as he had promised to his
eldest son Robert, despite their bitter differences (Robert had sided with his
father's enemies in Normandy, and even wounded and defeated his father in a
battle there in 1079). His son, William Rufus, was to succeed William as King
of England, and the third remaining son, Henry, was left 5,000 pounds in
silver. William was buried in his abbey foundation of St Stephen at Caen. Desecrated by Huguenots (1562) and Revolutionaries (1793), the burial place of the
first Norman king of England is marked by a simple stone slab.
WILLIAM II (KNOWN AS WILLIAM RUFUS) (1087-1100)
Strong, outspoken and ruddy (hence his
nickname 'Rufus'), William II (reigned 1087-1100) extended his father's
policies, taking royal power to the far north of England. Ruthless in his
relations with his brother Robert, William extended his grip on the duchy of Normandy under an agreement between the brothers in 1091. (Robert went on crusade in 1096.)
William's relations with the Church were
not easy; he took over Archbishop Lanfranc's revenues after the latter's death
in 1089, kept other bishoprics vacant to make use of their revenues, and had
numerous arguments with Lanfranc's popular successor, Anselm. William died on 2 August 1100, after being shot by an arrow whilst hunting in the New Forest.
HENRY I (1100-1135)
William's younger brother
Henry succeeded to the throne. He was crowned three days after his brother's
death, against the possibility that his eldest brother Robert might claim the
English throne. After the decisive battle of Tinchebrai in 1106 in France, Henry completed his conquest of Normandy from Robert, who then (unusually even for
that time) spent the last 28 years of his life as his brother's prisoner. An
energetic, decisive and occasionally cruel ruler, Henry centralised the
administration of England and Normandy in the royal court, using 'viceroys' in
Normandy and a group of advisers in England to act on his behalf when he was
absent across the Channel. Henry successfully sought to increase royal
revenues, as shown by the official records of his exchequer (the Pipe Roll of
1130, the first exchequer account to survive). He established peaceful
relations with Scotland, through his marriage to Mathilda of Scotland. Henry's
name 'Beauclerc' denoted his good education (as the youngest son, his parents
possibly expected that he would become a bishop); Henry was probably the first
Norman king to be fluent in English. In 1120, his legitimate sons William and
Richard drowned in the White Ship which sank in the English Channel. This posed
a succession problem, as Henry never allowed any of his illegitimate children
to expect succession to either England or Normandy. Henry had a legitimate
daughter Matilda (widow of Emperor Henry V, subsequently married to the Count
of Anjou). However, it was his nephew Stephen (reigned 1135-54), son of William
the Conqueror's daughter Adela, who succeeded Henry after his death, allegedly
caused by eating too many lampreys (fish) in 1135, as the barons mostly opposed
the idea of a female ruler.
STEPHEN AND MATILDA (1135-1154)
Though charming,
attractive and (when required) a brave warrior, Stephen (reigned 1135-54)
lacked ruthlessness and failed to inspire loyalty. He could neither control his
friends nor subdue his enemies, despite the support of his brother Henry of
Blois (Bishop of Winchester) and his able wife Matilda of Boulogne. Henry I's
daughter Matilda invaded England in 1139 to claim the throne, and the country
was plunged into civil war. Although anarchy never spread over the whole
country, local feuds were pursued under the cover of the civil war; the bond
between the King and the nobles broke down, and senior figures (including
Stephen's brother Henry) freely changed allegiances as it suited them. In 1141,
Stephen was captured at Lincoln and his defeat seemed certain. However,
Matilda's arrogant behaviour antagonised even her own supporters (Angevins),
and Stephen was released in exchange for her captured ally and illegitimate
half-brother, Earl Robert of Gloucester. After the latter's death in 1147,
Matilda retired to Normandy (which her husband, the Count of Anjou had
conquered) in 1148. Stephen's throne was still disputed. Matilda's eldest son,
Henry, who had been given Normandy by his father in 1150 and who had married
the heiress Eleanor Duchess of Aquitaine, invaded England in 1149 and again in
1153. Stephen fought stubbornly against Henry; Stephen even attempted to ensure
his son Eustace's succession by having him crowned in Stephen's own lifetime.
The Church refused (having quarrelled with the king some years previously);
Eustace's death later in 1153 helped lead to a negotiated peace (the treaty of Wallingford) under which Henry would inherit the throne after Stephen's death.
THE ANGEVINS
Henry II, the son of Geoffrey Plantagenet and Henry
I's daughter Matilda, was the first in a long line of 14 Plantagenet kings,
stretching from Henry II's accession through to Richard III's death in 1485.
Within that line, however, four distinct Royal Houses can be identified:
Angevin, Plantagenet, Lancaster and York.
The first Angevin King, Henry II, began the period as
arguably the most powerful monarch in Europe, with lands stretching from the
Scottish borders to the Pyrenees. In addition, Ireland was added to his
inheritance, a mission entrusted to him by Pope Adrian IV (the only English
Pope). A new administrative zeal was evident at the beginning of the period and
an efficient system of government was formulated. The justice system developed.
However there were quarrels with the Church, which became more powerful
following the murder of Thomas à Becket.
As with many of his predecessors, Henry II spent much
of his time away from England fighting abroad. This was taken to an extreme by
his son Richard, who spent only 10 months of a ten-year reign in the country
due to his involvement in the crusades. The last of the Angevin kings was John,
whom history has judged harshly. By 1205, six years into his reign, only a
fragment of the vast Angevin empire acquired by Henry II remained. John
quarrelled with the Pope over the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
eventually surrendering. He was also forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215,
which restated the rights of the church, the barons and all in the land. John
died in ignominy, having broken the contract, leading the nobles to summon aid
from France and creating a precarious position for his heir, Henry III.
HENRY II CURTMANTLE (1154-1189)
Henry II ruled over an empire which stretched from
the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. One of the strongest, most energetic and
imaginative rulers, Henry was the inheritor of three dynasties who had acquired
Aquitaine by marriage; his charters listed them: 'King of the English, Duke
of the Normans and Aquitanians and Count of the Angevins'. The King spent only
13 years of his reign in England; the other 21 years were spent on the
continent in his territories in what is now France. Henry's rapid movements in
carrying out his dynastic responsibilities astonished the French king, who
noted 'now in England, now in Normandy, he must fly rather than travel by horse
or ship'. By 1158, Henry had restored to the Crown some of the lands and royal
power lost by Stephen; Malcom IV of Scotland was compelled to return the
northern counties. Locally chosen sheriffs were changed into royally appointed
agents charged with enforcing the law and collecting taxes in the counties.
Personally interested in government and law, Henry made use of juries and
re-introduced the sending of justices (judges) on regular tours of the country
to try cases for the Crown. His legal reforms have led him to be seen as the
founder of English Common Law. Henry's disagreements with the Archbishop of
Canterbury (the king's former chief adviser), Thomas à Becket, over
Church-State relations ended in Becket's murder in 1170 and a papal interdict
on England. Family disputes over territorial ambitions almost wrecked the
king's achievements. Henry died in France in 1189, at war with his son Richard,
who had joined forces with King Philip of France to attack Normandy.
RICHARD I COEUR DE LION ('THE LIONHEART') (1189-1199)
Henry's elder son, Richard I (reigned 1189-99),
fulfilled his main ambition by going on crusade in 1190, leaving the ruling of England to others. After his victories over Saladin at the siege of Acre and the battles of
Arsuf and Jaffa, concluded by the treaty of Jaffa (1192), Richard was returning
from the Holy Land when he was captured in Austria. In early 1193, Richard was
transferred to Emperor Henry VI's custody. In Richard's absence, King Philip
of France failed to obtain Richard's French possessions through invasion or
negotiation. In England, Richard's brother John occupied Windsor Castle and prepared an invasion of England by Flemish mercenaries, accompanied by armed
uprisings. Their mother, Queen Eleanor, took firm action against John by
strengthening garrisons and again exacting oaths of allegiance to the king.
John's subversive activities were ended by the payment of a crushing ransom of
150,000 marks of silver to the emperor, for Richard's release in 1194. Warned
by Philip's famous message 'look to yourself, the devil is loosed', John fled
to the French court. On his return to England, Richard was recrowned at Winchester in 1194. Five years later he died in France during a minor siege against a
rebellious baron. By the time of his death, Richard had recovered all his
lands. His success was short-lived. In 1199 his brother John became king and
Philip successfully invaded Normandy. By 1203, John had retreated to England, losing his French lands of Normandy and Anjou by 1205.
JOHN (1199-1216)
John was an able administrator interested in law and
government but he neither trusted others nor was trusted by them. Heavy
taxation, disputes with the Church (John was excommunicated by the Pope in
1209) and unsuccessful attempts to recover his French possessions made him
unpopular. Many of his barons rebelled and in June 1215 they forced the King to
sign a peace treaty accepting their reforms. This treaty, later known as Magna
Carta, limited royal powers, defined feudal obligations between the King and
the barons, and guaranteed a number of rights. The most influential clauses
concerned the freedom of the Church; the redress of grievances of owners and
tenants of land; the need to consult the Great Council of the Realm so as to
prevent unjust taxation; mercantile and trading relationships; regulation of
the machinery of justice so that justice be denied to no one; and the
requirement to control the behaviour of royal officials. The most important
clauses established the basis of habeas corpus ('you have the body'), i.e. that
no one shall be imprisoned except by due process of law, and that 'to no one
will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice'. The Charter
also established a council of barons who were to ensure that the Sovereign
observed the Charter, with the right to wage war on him if he did not. Magna
Carta was the first formal document insisting that the Sovereign was as much
under the rule of law as his people, and that the rights of individuals were to
be upheld even against the wishes of the sovereign. As a source of fundamental
constitutional principles, Magna Carta came to be seen as an important
definition of aspects of English law, and in later centuries as the basis of
the liberties of the English people. As a peace treaty Magna Carta was a
failure and the rebels invited Louis of France to become their king. When John
died in 1216 England was in the grip of civil war.
THE PLANTAGENETS
The Plantagenet period was dominated by
three major conflicts at home and abroad. Edward I attempted to create a British empire dominated by England, conquering Wales and pronouncing his eldest son
Prince of Wales, and then attacking Scotland. Scotland was to remain elusive
and retain its independence until late in the reign of the Stuart
kings. In the reign of Edward III the Hundred Years War began, a
struggle between England and France. At the end of the Plantagenet
period, the reign of Richard II saw the beginning of the long period of
civil feuding known as the War of the Roses. For the next century, the
crown would be disputed by two conflicting family strands, the
Lancastrians and the Yorkists.
The period also saw the development of new social
institutions and a distinctive English culture. Parliament emerged and
grew. The judicial reforms begun in the reign of Henry II were continued
and completed by Edward I. Culture began to flourish. Three Plantagenet
kings were patrons of Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English
poetry. During the early part of the period, the architectural style
of the Normans gave way to the Gothic, in which style Salisbury Cathedral
was built. Westminster Abbey was rebuilt and the majority of English
cathedrals remodelled. Franciscan and Dominican orders began to
be established in England, while the universities of Oxford and Cambridge had their origins in this period.
Amidst the order of learning and art, however,
were disturbing new phenomena. The outbreak of Bubonic plague or the
'Black Death' served to undermine military campaigns and cause huge social
turbulence, killing half the country's population. The price rises and
labour shortage which resulted led to social unrest, culminating in the
Peasants' Revolt in 1381.
THE
PLANTAGENET DYNASTIES
1216 - 1485
HENRY
III =
Eleanor, dau. of Count of Provence
(1216–1272)
Eleanor, = EDWARD I
dau.
of (1272–1307)
FERDINAND
III,
King of Castile
and Leon
EDWARD II =
Isabella, dau.
(1307–1327) of PHILIP IV,
King of France
EDWARD III =
Philippa, dau. of Count
(1327–1377)
of Hainault and Holland
Edward, Prince = Joan, dau. of Earl Lionel, Duke =
Elizabeth Blanche of = John, Duke = Katharine
Swynford,
of Wales, of Kent (son of
Clarence de Burgh Lancaster of Lancaster
dau. of Sir Roet
The Black Prince of EDWARD
I) of
Guienne
RICHARD II Edmund, =
Philippa Mary = HENRY IV John Beaufort,
(1377–1399) Earl of
March Bohun (1399–1413)
Roger, Earl =
Eleanor HENRY V (1) = Katherine, dau. John
Beaufort,
of March Holland
(1413–1422) of CHARLES VI, Duke of Somerset
King of France
Richard, Earl =
Anne HENRY
VI Margaret Beaufort = Edmund Tudor,
of Cambridge Mortimer (1422–1461,
Earl of Richmond
1470–1471)
Richard, Duke =
Cecily Elizabeth of York, = HENRY VII
of York
Neville
dau. of EDWARD IV (1485–1509)
EDWARD IV = Elizabeth,
dau. RICHARD III
(1461–1470, of Sir
Richard (1483–1485)
1471–1483) Woodville
EDWARD
V Elizabeth = HENRY VII
(1483)
(1485–1509)
HENRY III (1216-1272)
Henry III, King John's son, was only nine when he
became King. By 1227, when he assumed power from his regent, order had been
restored, based on his acceptance of Magna Carta. However, the King's failed
campaigns in France (1230 and 1242), his choice of friends and advisers,
together with the cost of his scheme to make one of his younger sons King of
Sicily and help the Pope against the Holy Roman Emperor, led to further
disputes with the barons and united opposition in Church and State. Although
Henry was extravagant and his tax demands were resented, the King's accounts
show a list of many charitable donations and payments for building works
(including the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey which began in 1245). The
Provisions of Oxford (1258) and the Provisions of Westminster (1259) were
attempts by the nobles to define common law in the spirit of Magna Carta,
control appointments and set up an aristocratic council. Henry tried to defeat
them by obtaining papal absolution from his oaths, and enlisting King Louis
XI's help. Henry renounced the Provisions in 1262 and war broke out. The
barons, under their leader, Simon de Montfort, were initially successful and
even captured Henry. However, Henry escaped, joined forces with the lords of
the Marches (on the Welsh border), and Henry finally defeated and killed de
Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Royal authority was restored by the
Statute of Marlborough (1267), in which the King also promised to uphold Magna
Carta and some of the Provisions of Westminster.
EDWARD I (1272-1307)
Born in June 1239 at Westminster, Edward was named by
his father Henry III after the last Anglo Saxon king (and his father's
favourite saint), Edward the Confessor. Edward's parents were renowned for
their patronage of the arts (his mother, Eleanor of Provence, encouraged Henry
III to spend money on the arts, which included the rebuilding of Westminster
Abbey and a still-extant magnificent shrine to house the body of Edward the
Confessor), and Edward received a disciplined education - reading and writing
in Latin and French, with training in the arts, sciences and music. In 1254,
Edward travelled to Spain for an arranged marriage at the age of 15 to
9-year-old Eleanor of Castile. Just before Edward's marriage, Henry III gave
him the duchy of Gascony, one of the few remnants of the once vast French
possessions of the English Angevin kings. Gascony was part of a package which
included parts of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the King's lands in Wales to provide an income for Edward. Edward then spent a year in Gascony, studying its
administration. Edward spent his young adulthood learning harsh lessons from
Henry III's failures as a king, culminating in a civil war in which he fought
to defend his father. Henry's ill-judged and expensive intervention in Sicilian
affairs (lured by the Pope's offer of the Sicilian crown to Henry's younger
son) failed, and aroused the anger of powerful barons including Henry's brother-in-law
Simon de Montfort. Bankrupt and threatened with excommunication, Henry was
forced to agree to the Provisions of Oxford in 1258, under which his debts were
paid in exchange for substantial reforms; a Great Council of 24, partly
nominated by the barons, assumed the functions of the King's Council. Henry
repudiated the Provisions in 1261 and sought the help of the French king Louis
IX (later known as St Louis for his piety and other qualities). This was the
only time Edward was tempted to side with his charismatic and politically
ruthless godfather Simon de Montfort - he supported holding a Parliament in his
father's absence. However, by the time Louis IX decided to side with Henry in
the dispute and civil war broke out in England in 1263, Edward had returned to
his father's side and became de Montfort's greatest enemy. After winning the
battle of Lewes in 1264 (after which Edward became a hostage to ensure his
father abided by the terms of the peace), de Montfort summoned the Great
Parliament in 1265 - this was the first time cities and burghs sent
representatives to the parliament. (Historians differ as to whether de Montfort
was an enlightened liberal reformer or an unscrupulous opportunist using any
means to advance himself.) In May 1265, Edward escaped from tight supervision
whilst hunting. On 4 August, Edward and his allies outmanoeuvred de Montfort in
a savage battle at Evesham; de Montfort predicted his own defeat and death 'let
us commend our souls to God, because our bodies are theirs ... they are
approaching wisely, they learned this from me.' With the ending of the civil
war, Edward worked hard at social and political reconciliation between his
father and the rebels, and by 1267 the realm had been pacified. In April 1270
Parliament agreed an unprecedented levy of one-twentieth of every citizen's
goods and possessions to finance Edward's Crusade to the Holy Lands. Edward
left England in August 1270 to join the highly respected French king Louis IX
on Crusade. At a time when popes were using the crusading ideal to further
their own political ends in Italy and elsewhere, Edward and King Louis were the
last crusaders in the medieval tradition of aiming to recover the Holy Lands.
Louis died of the plague in Tunis before Edward's arrival, and the French
forces were bought off from pursuing their campaign. Edward decided to continue
regardless: 'by the blood of God, though all my fellow soldiers and countrymen
desert me, I will enter Acre ... and I will keep my word and my oath to the
death'. Edward arrived in Acre in May 1271 with 1,000 knights; his crusade was
to prove an anticlimax. Edward's small force limited him to the relief of Acre and a handful of raids, and divisions amongst the international force of Christian
Crusaders led to Edward's compromise truce with the Baibars. In June 1272,
Edward survived a murder attempt by an Assassin (an order of Shi'ite Muslims)
and left for Sicily later in the year. He was never to return on crusade.
Meanwhile, Henry III died on 16 November 1272. Edward succeeded to the throne
without opposition - given his track record in military ability and his proven
determination to give peace to the country, enhanced by his magnified exploits
on crusade. In Edward's absence, a proclamation in his name delcared that he
had succeeded by hereditary right and the barons swore allegeiance to him.
Edward finally arrived in London in August 1274 and was crowned at Westminster
Abbey. Aged 35, he was a veteran warrior ('the best lance in all the world',
according to contemporaries), a leader with energy and vision, and with a
formidable temper. Edward was determined to enforce English kings' claims to
primacy in the British Isles. The first part of his reign was dominated by Wales. At that time, Wales consisted of a number of disunited small Welsh princedoms; the
South Welsh princes were in uneasy alliance with the Marcher lords (feudal
earldoms and baronies set up by the Norman kings to protect the English border
against Welsh raids) against the Northern Welsh based in the rocky wilds of
Gwynedd, under the strong leadership of Llywelyn ap Gruffyd, Prince of Gwynedd.
In 1247, under the Treaty of Woodstock, Llywelyn had agreed that he held North Wales in fee to the English king. By 1272, Llywelyn had taken advantage of the
English civil wars to consolidate his position, and the Peace of Montgomery
(1267) had confirmed his title as Prince of Wales and recognised his
conquests. However, Llywelyn maintained that the rights of his principality
were 'entirely separate from the rights' of England; he did not attend Edward's
coronation and refused to do homage. Finally, in 1277 Edward decided to fight
Llywelyn 'as a rebel and disturber of the peace', and quickly defeated him. War
broke out again in 1282 when Llywelyn joined his brother David in rebellion.
Edward's determination, military experience and skilful use of ships brought
from England for deployment along the North Welsh coast, drove Llywelyn back
into the mountains of North Wales. The death of Llywelyn in a chance battle in
1282 and the subsequent execution of his brother David effectively ended
attempts at Welsh independence. Under the Statute of Wales of 1284, Wales was brought into the English legal framework and the shire system was extended. In
the same year, a son was born in Wales to Edward and Queen Eleanor (also named
Edward, this future king was proclaimed the first English Prince of Wales in
1301). The Welsh campaign had produced one of the largest armies ever assembled
by an English king - some 15,000 infantry (including 9,000 Welsh and a Gascon
contingent); the army was a formidable combination of heavy Anglo-Norman
cavalry and Welsh archers, whose longbow skills laid the foundations of later
military victories in France such as that at Agincourt. As symbols of his military
strength and political authority, Edward spent some £80,000 on a network
of castles and lesser strongholds in North Wales, employing a work-force of up
to 3,500 men drawn from all over England. (Some castles, such as Conway and Caernarvon, remain in their ruined layouts today, as examples of fortresses
integrated with fortified towns.) Edward's campaign in Wales was based on his determination to ensure peace and extend royal authority, and it had
broad support in England. Edward saw the need to widen support among lesser
landowners and the merchants and traders of the towns. The campaigns in Wales, France and Scotland left Edward deeply in debt, and the taxation required to meet
those debts meant enrolling national support for his policies. To raise
money, Edward summoned Parliament - up to 1286 he summoned Parliaments twice a
year. (The word 'Parliament' came from the 'parley' or talks which the King had
with larger groups of advisers.) In 1295, when money was needed to wage war
against Philip of France (who had confiscated the duchy of Gascony), Edward
summoned the most comprehensive assembly ever summoned in England. This became known as the Model Parliament, for it represented various estates:
barons, clergy, and knights and townspeople. By the end of Edward's reign,
Parliament usually contained representatives of all these estates. Edward used
his royal authority to establish the rights of the Crown at the expense of
traditional feudal privileges, to promote the uniform administration of justice,
to raise income to meet the costs of war and government, and to codify the
legal system. In doing so, his methods emphasised the role of Parliament and
the common law. With the able help of his Chancellor, Robert Burnell, Bishop of
Bath and Wells, Edward introduced much new legislation. He began by
commissioning a thorough survey of local government (with the results entered
into documents known as the Hundred Rolls), which not only defined royal rights
and possessions but also revealed administrative abuses. The First Statute of
Westminster (1275) codified 51 existing laws - many originating from Magna
Carta - covering areas ranging from extortion by royal officers, lawyers and
bailiffs, methods of procedure in civil and criminal cases to freedom of elections.
Edward's first Parliament also enacted legislation on wool, England's most important export at the time. At the request of the merchants, Edward was
given a customs grant on wool and hides which amounted to nearly £10,000
a year. Edward also obtained income from the licence fees imposed by the
Statute of Mortmain (1279), under which gifts of land to the Church (often made
to evade death duties) had to have a royal licence. The Statutes of Gloucester
(1278) and Quo Warranto (1290) attempted to define and regulate feudal
jurisdictions, which were an obstacle to royal authority and to a uniform
system of justice for all; the Statute of Winchester (1285) codified the
policing system for preserving public order. Other statutes had a long-term
effect on land law and on the feudal framework in England. The Second Statute
of Westminster (1285) restricted the alienation of land and kept entailed
estates within families: tenants were only tenants for life and not able to
sell the property to others. The Third Statute of Westminster or Quia Emptores
(1290) stopped subinfeudation (in which tenants of land belonging to the King
or to barons subcontracted their properties and related feudal services).
Edward's assertion that the King of Scotland owed feudal allegiance to him, and
the embittered Anglo-Scottish relations leading to war which followed, were to
overshadow the rest of Edward's reign in what was to become known as the 'Great
Cause'. Under a treaty of 1174, William the Lion of Scotland had become the vassal
to Henry II, but in 1189 Richard I had absolved William from his allegiance.
Intermarriage between the English and Scottish royal houses promoted peace
between the two countries until the premature death of Alexander III in 1286.
In 1290, his granddaughter and heiress, Margaret the 'Maid of Norway' (daughter
of the King of Norway, she was pledged to be married to Edward's then only
surviving son, Edward of Caernarvon), also died. For Edward, this dynastic blow
was made worse by the death in the same year of his much-loved wife Eleanor
(her body was ceremonially carried from Lincoln to Westminster for burial, and
a memorial cross erected at every one of the twelve resting places, including
what became known as Charing Cross in London). In the absence of an obvious
heir to the Scottish throne, the disunited Scottish magnates invited Edward to
determine the dispute. In order to gain acceptance of his authority in reaching
a verdict, Edward sought and obtained recognition from the rival claimants that
he had the 'sovereign lordship of Scotland and the right to determine our
several pretensions'. In November 1292, Edward and his 104 assessors gave the
whole kingdom to John Balliol or Baliol as the claimant closest to the royal
line; Balliol duly swore loyalty to Edward and was crowned at Scone. John
Balliol's position proved difficult. Edward insisted that Scotland was not independent and he, as sovereign lord, had the right to hear in England appeals against Balliol's judgements in Scotland. In 1294, Balliol lost authority
amongst Scottish magnates by going to Westminster after receiving a summons
from Edward; the magnates decided to seek allies in France and concluded the
'Auld Alliance' with France (then at war with England over the duchy of
Gascony) - an alliance which was to influence Scottish history for the next 300
years. In March 1296, having failed to negotiate a settlement, the English led
by Edward sacked the city of Berwick near the River Tweed. Balliol formally
renounced his homage to Edward in April 1296, speaking of 'grievous and
intolerable injuries ... for instance by summoning us outside our realm ... as
your own whim dictated ... and so ... we renounce the fealty and homage which
we have done to you'. Pausing to design and start the rebuilding of Berwick as
the financial capital of the country, Edward's forces overran remaining
Scottish resistance. Scots leaders were taken hostage, and Edinburgh Castle, amongst others, was seized. Balliol surrendered his realm and spent the rest
of his life in exile in England and Normandy. Having humiliated Balliol,
Edward's insensitive policies in Scotland continued: he appointed a trio of
Englishmen to run the country. Edward had the Stone of Scone - also known as
the Stone of Destiny - on which Scottish sovereigns had been crowned removed to
London and subsequently placed in the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey
(where it remained until it was returned to Scotland in 1996). Edward never
built stone castles on strategic sites in Scotland, as he had done so
successfully in Wales - possibly because he did not have the funds for another
ambitious castle-building programme. By 1297, Edward was facing the biggest
crisis in his reign, and his commitments outweighed his resources. Chronic
debts were being incurred by wars against France, in Flanders, Gascony and
Wales as well as Scotland; the clergy were refusing to pay their share of the
costs, with the Archbishop of Canterbury threatening excommunication;
Parliament was reluctant to contribute to Edward's expensive and unsuccessful
military policies; the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk refused to serve in
Gascony, and the barons presented a formal statement of their grievances. In
the end, Edward was forced to reconfirm the Charters (including Magna Carta) to
obtain the money he required; the Archbishop was eventually suspended in 1306
by the new Gascon Pope Clement V; a truce was declared with France in 1297, followed by a peace treaty in 1303 under which the French king restored the
duchy of Gascony to Edward. In Scotland, Edward pursued a series of campaigns
from 1298 onwards. William Wallace had risen in Balliol's name and recovered
most of Scotland, before being defeated by Edward at the battle of Falkirk in 1298. (Wallace escaped, only to be captured in 1305, allegedly by the treachery
of a fellow Scot and taken to London, where he was executed.) In 1304, Edward
summoned a full Parliament (which elected Scottish representatives also
attended), in which arrangements for the settlement of Scotland were made. The new government in Scotland featured a Council, which included
Robert the Bruce. Bruce unexpectedly rebelled in 1306 by killing a fellow
counsellor and was crowned king of Scotland at Scone. Despite his failing
health, Edward was carried north to pursue another campaign, but he died en
route at Burgh on Sands on 7 July 1307 aged 68. According to chroniclers,
Edward requested that his bones should be carried on Scottish campaigns and
that his heart be taken to the Holy Land. However, Edward was buried at Westminster
Abbey in a plain black marble tomb, which in later years was painted with the
words Scottorum malleus (Hammer of the Scots) and Pactum serva (Keep troth).
Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Exchequer paid to keep
candles burning 'round the body of the Lord Edward, formerly King of England,
of famous memory'.
EDWARD II (1307-1327)
Edward II had few of the qualities that made a
successful medieval king. Edward surrounded himself with favourites (the best
known being a Gascon, Piers Gaveston), and the barons, feeling excluded from
power, rebelled. Throughout his reign, different baronial groups struggled to
gain power and control the King. The nobles' ordinances of 1311, which
attempted to limit royal control of finance and appointments, were counteracted
by Edward. Large debts (many inherited) and the Scots' victory at Bannockburn by Robert the Bruce in 1314 made Edward more unpopular. Edward's victory in a
civil war (1321-2) and such measures as the 1326 ordinance (a protectionist
measure which set up compulsory markets or staples in 14 English, Welsh and
Irish towns for the wool trade) did not lead to any compromise between the King
and the nobles. Finally, in 1326, Edward's wife, Isabella of France, led an
invasion against her husband. In 1327 Edward was made to renounce the throne in
favour of his son Edward (the first time that an anointed king of England had been dethroned since Ethelred in 1013). Edward II was later murdered at Berkeley Castle.
EDWARD III (1327-77)
Edward III was 14 when he was crowned King and assumed
government in his own right in 1330. In 1337, Edward created the Duchy of
Cornwall to provide the heir to the throne with an income independent of the
sovereign or the state. An able soldier, and an inspiring leader, Edward
founded the Order of the Garter in 1348. At the beginning of the Hundred Years
War in 1337, actual campaigning started when the King invaded France in 1339 and laid claim to the throne of France. Following a sea victory at Sluys in 1340,
Edward overran Brittany in 1342 and in 1346 he landed in Normandy, defeating
the French King, Philip IV, at the Battle of Crécy and his son Edward
(the Black Prince) repeated his success at Poitiers (1356). By 1360 Edward
controlled over a quarter of France. His successes consolidated the support of
the nobles, lessened criticism of the taxes, and improved relations with
Parliament. However, under the 1375 Treaty of Bruges the French King, Charles
V, reversed most of the English conquests; Calais and a coastal strip near Bordeaux were Edward's only lasting gain. Failure abroad provoked criticism at home. The
Black Death plague outbreaks of 1348-9, 1361-2 and 1369 inflicted severe social
dislocation (the King lost a daughter to the plague) and caused deflation;
severe laws were introduced to attempt to fix wages and prices. In 1376, the
'Good Parliament' (which saw the election of the first Speaker to represent the
Commons) attacked the high taxes and criticised the King's advisers. The ageing
King withdrew to Windsor for the rest of his reign, eventually dying at Sheen Palace, Surrey.
RICHARD II (1377-99)
Edward III's son, the Black Prince, died in 1376. The
King's grandson, Richard II, succeeded to the throne aged 10, on Edward's
death. In 1381 the Peasants' Revolt broke out and Richard, aged 14, bravely
rode out to meet the rebels at Smithfield, London. Wat Tyler, the principal
leader of the peasants, was killed and the uprisings in the rest of the country
were crushed over the next few weeks (Richard was later forced by his Council's
advice to rescind the pardons he had given). Highly cultured, Richard was one
of the greatest royal patrons of the arts; patron of Chaucer, it was Richard
who ordered the technically innovative transformation of the Norman Westminster
Hall to what it is today. (Built between 1097 and 1099 by William II, the Hall
was the ceremonial and administrative centre of the kingdom; it also housed the
Courts of Justice until 1882.) Richard's authoritarian approach upset vested interests,
and his increasing dependence on favourites provoked resentment. In 1388 the
'Merciless Parliament' led by a group of lords hostile to Richard (headed by
the King's uncle, Gloucester) sentenced many of the King's favourites to death
and forced Richard to renew his coronation oath. The death of his first queen,
Anne of Bohemia, in 1394 further isolated Richard, and his subsequent arbitrary
behaviour alienated people further. Richard took his revenge in 1397, arresting
or banishing many of his opponents; his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, was also
subsequently banished. On the death of Henry's father, John of Gaunt (a younger
son of Edward III), Richard confiscated the vast properties of his Duchy of
Lancaster (which amounted to a state within a state) and divided them among his
supporters. Richard pursued policies of peace with France (his second wife was
Isabella of Valois); Richard still called himself king of France and refused to give up Calais, but his reign was concurrent with a 28 year truce in
the Hundred Years War. His expeditions to Ireland failed to reconcile the
Anglo-Irish lords with the Gaels. In 1399, whilst Richard was in Ireland, Henry of Bolingbroke returned to claim his father's inheritance. Supported by some
of the leading baronial families (including Richard's former Archbishop of
Canterbury), Henry captured and deposed Richard. Bolingbroke was crowned King
as Henry IV. Risings in support of Richard led to his murder in Pontefract Castle; Henry V subsequently had his body buried in Westminster Abbey.
THE LANCASTRIANS
The accession of Henry IV sowed the seeds for a period
of unrest which ultimately broke out in civil war. Fraught by rebellion and
instability after his usurpation of Richard II, Henry IV found it difficult to
enforce his rule. His son, Henry V, fared better, defeating France in the famous Battle of Agincourt (1415) and staking a powerful claim to the French
throne. Success was short-lived with his early death.
By the reign of the relatively weak Henry VI, civil
war broke out between rival claimants to the throne, dating back to the sons of
Edward III. The Lancastrian dynasty descended from John of Gaunt, third son of
Edward III, whose son Henry deposed the unpopular Richard II. Yorkist
claimants such as the Duke of York asserted their legitimate claim to the
throne through Edward III's second surviving son, but through a female line.
The Wars of the Roses therefore tested whether the succession should keep to
the male line or could pass through females.
Captured and briefly restored, Henry VI was captured
and put to death, and the Yorkist faction led by Edward IV gained the throne.
HENRY IV (1399-1413)
Henry IV was born at Bolingbroke in 1367 to John of
Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. He married Mary Bohun in 1380, who bore him
seven children before her death in 1394. In 1402, Henry remarried, taking as
his bride Joan of Navarre. Henry had an on-again,
off-again relationship with his cousin, Richard II. He was one of the Lords Appellant,
who, in 1388, persecuted many of Richard's advisor-favorites, but his
excellence as a soldier gained the king's favor - Henry was created Duke of
Hereford in 1397. In 1398, however, the increasingly suspicious Richard
banished him for ten years. John of Gaunt's death in 1399 prompted Richard to
confiscate the vast Lancastrian estates; Henry invaded England while Richard was on campaign in Ireland, usurping the throne from the king. The
very nature of Henry's usurpation dictated the circumstances of his reign -
incessant rebellion became the order of the day. Richard's supporters
immediately revolted upon his deposition in 1400. In Wales, Owen Glendower led
a national uprising that lasted until 1408; the Scots waged continual warfare
throughout the reign; the powerful families of Percy and Mortimer (the latter
possessing a stronger claim to the throne than Henry) revolted from 1403 to
1408; and Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, proclaimed his opposition to the
Lancastrian claim in 1405. Two political blunders in the latter years of his
reign diminished Henry's support. His marriage to Joan of Navarre (of whom it
was rumored practiced necromancy) was highly unpopular - she was, in fact,
convicted of witchcraft in 1419. Scrope and Thomas Mawbray were executed in
1405 after conspiring against Henry; the Archbishop's execution alarmed the
English people, adding to his unpopularity. He developed a nasty skin disorder
and epilepsy, persuading many that God was punishing the king for executing an
archbishop. Crushing the myriad of rebellions was costly, which involved
calling Parliament to fund such activities. The House of Commons used the
opportunity to expand its powers in 1401, securing recognition of freedom of
debate and freedom from arrest for dissenting opinions. Lollardy, the
Protestant movement founded by John Wycliffe during the reign of Edward III,
gained momentum and frightened both secular and clerical landowners, inspiring
the first anti-heresy statute, De Heritico Comburendo, to become law in
1401. Henry, ailing from leprosy and epilepsy, watched as Prince Henry
controlled the government for the last two years of his reign. In 1413, Henry
died in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. Rafael Holinshed explained
his unpopularity in Chronicles of England: "... by punishing such as moved
with disdain to see him usurp the crown, did at sundry times rebel against him,
he won(himself more hatred, than in all his life time ... had been possible for
him to have weeded out and removed." Unlikely as it may seem (due to the
amount of rebellion in his reign); Henry left his eldest son an undisputed
succession.
HENRY V (1413-1422)
Henry
V, the eldest son of Henry IV and Mary Bohun, was born in 1387. As per
arrangement by the Treaty of Troyes, he married Catherine, daughter of the
French King Charles VI, in June 1420. His only child, the future Henry VI, was
born in 1421.
Henry was an
accomplished soldier: at age fourteen he fought the Welsh forces of Owen ap
Glendower; at age sixteen he commanded his father's forces at the battle of Shrewsbury; and shortly after his accession he put down a major Lollard uprising and an
assassination plot by nobles still loyal to Richard II . He proposed to marry
Catherine in 1415, demanding the old Plantagenet lands of Normandy and Anjou as
his dowry. Charles VI refused and Henry declared war, opening yet another
chapter in the Hundred Years' War. The French war served two purposes - to gain
lands lost in previous battles and to focus attention away from any of his
cousins' royal ambitions. Henry, possessed a masterful military mind and
defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt in October 1415, and by 1419 had
captured Normandy, Picardy and much of the Capetian stronghold of the Ile-de-France.
By the Treaty of
Troyes in 1420, Charles VI not only accepted Henry as his son-in-law, but
passed over his own son to name Henry as heir to the French crown. Had Henry lived a
mere two months longer, he would have been king of both England and France.
Henry had prematurely aged due
to living the hard life of a soldier. He became seriously ill and died after returning from yet another
French campaign; Catherine had bore his only son while he was away
and Henry died having never seen the child. The historian Rafael Holinshed, in Chronicles of England , summed
up Henry's reign as such: "This Henry was a king, of life without spot, a
prince whom all men loved, and of none disdained, e captain against whom
fortune never frowned, nor mischance once spurned, whose people him so severe a
justicer both loved and obeyed (and so humane withal) that he left no offence
unpunished, nor friendship unrewarded; a terror to rebels, and suppressor of
sedition, his virtues notable, his qualities most praiseworthy."
HENRY
VI (1422-61, 1470-71 AD)
Henry VI was the only child of Henry V and Catherine
of Valois, born on December 6, 1421. He married Margaret of Anjou in 1445; the
union produced one son, Edward, who was killed in battle one day before Henry's
execution. Henry came to the throne as an infant after the early death of his
father; in name, he was king of both England and France, but a protector ruled
each realm. He was educated by Richard Beauchamp beginning in 1428. The whole
of Henry's reign was involved with retaining both of his crowns - in the end,
he held neither.
Hostilities in France continued, but
momentum swung to the French with the appearance of Joan of Arc in 1428. The
seventeen year old was instrumental in rescuing the French Dauphin Charles in
1429; he was crowned at Reims as Charles VII, and she was burned at the stake
as a heretic. English losses in Brittany (1449), Normandy (1450) and Gascony (1453) led to the conclusion of the Hundred Years' War in 1453. Henry lost his
claim to all French soil except for Calais.
The Wars of the Roses began in full during
Henry's reign. In 1453, Henry had an attack of the hereditary mental illness
that plagued the French house of Valois; Richard, Duke of York, was made
protector of the realm during the illness. His wife Margaret, a rather headstrong
woman, alienated Richard upon Henry's recovery and Richard responded by
attacking and defeating the queen's forces at St. Albans in 1455. Richard
captured the king in 1460 and forced him to acknowledge Richard as heir to the
crown. Henry escaped, joined the Lancastvian forces and attacked at Towton in
March 1461, only to be defeated by the Yorks. Richard's son, Edward IV, was
proclaimed king; Margaret and Henry were exiled to Scotland. They were captured
in 1465 and imprisoned in the Tower of London until 1470. Henry was briefly
restored to power in Settember 1470. Edward, Prince of Wales, died after his
final victory at Tewkesbury on May 20, 1471 and Henry returned to the Tower.
The last Lancastrian king was murdered the following day.
THE YORKISTS
The Yorkist conquest of the Lancastrians in 1461 did
not put an end to the Wars of the Roses, which rumbled on until the start of
the sixteenth century. Family disloyalty in the form of Richard III's betrayal
of his nephews, the young King Edward V and his brother, was part of his
downfall. Henry Tudor, a claimant to the throne of Lancastrian descent,
defeated Richard III in battle and Richard was killed. With the marriage of
Henry to Elizabeth, the sister of the young Princes in the Tower, reconciliation
was finally achieved between the warring houses of Lancaster and York in the form of the new Tudor dynasty, which combined their respective red and white
emblems to produce the Tudor rose.
EDWARD IV (1461-1470 and 1471-1483)
Edward IV was able to restore order, despite the
temporary return to the throne of Henry VI (reigned 1470-71, during which time
Edward fled to the Continent in exile) supported by the Earl of Warwick, 'the
Kingmaker', who had previously supported Edward and who was killed at the
Battle of Barnet in 1471. Edward also made peace with France; by a shrewd display of force to exert pressure, Edward reached a profitable
agreement with Louis XI at Picquigny in 1475. At home, Edward relied heavily
on his own personal control in government, reviving the ancient custom of
sitting in person 'on the bench' (i.e. in judgement) to enforce justice. He
sacked Lancastrian office-holders and used his financial acumen to introduce
tight management of royal revenues to reduce the Crown's debt. Building closer
relations with the merchant community, he encouraged commercial treaties; he
successfully traded in wool on his own account to restore his family's fortunes
and enable the King to 'live of his own', paying the costs of the country's
administration from the Crown Estates profits and freeing him from dependence
on subsidies from Parliament. Edward rebuilt St George's Chapel at Windsor (possibly seeing it as a mausoleum for the Yorkists, as he was buried there) and a
new great hall at Eltham Palace. Edward collected illuminated manuscripts - his
is the only intact medieval royal collection to survive (in the British
Library) - and patronised the new invention of printing. Edward died in 1483,
leaving by his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville a 12-year-old son, Edward, to
succeed him.
EDWARD V (April-June 1483)
Edward V was a minor, and his uncle Richard, Duke of
Gloucester, was made Protector. Richard had been loyal throughout to his
brother Edward IV including the events of 1470-71, Edward's exile and their
brother's rebellion (the Duke of Clarence, who was executed in 1478 by
drowning, reputedly in a barrel of Malmsey wine). However, he was suspicious of
the Woodville faction, possibly believing they were the cause of Clarence's
death. In response to an attempt by Elizabeth Woodville to take power, Richard
and Edward V entered London in May, with Edward's coronation fixed for 22 June.
However, in mid-June Richard assumed the throne as Richard III (reigned
1483-85). Edward V and his younger brother Richard were declared illegitimate,
taken to the Royal apartments at the Tower of London (then a Royal residence)
and never seen again. (Skeletons, allegedly theirs, found there in 1674 were
later buried in Westminster Abbey.)
RICHARD III (1483-1485)
Richard III usurped the throne from the
young Edward V, who disappeared with his younger brother while under their
ambitious uncle's supposed protection. On becoming king, Richard attempted
genuine reconciliation with the Yorkists by showing consideration to
Lancastrians purged from office by Edward IV, and moved Henry VI's body to St George's Chapel at Windsor. The first laws written entirely in English were passed
during his reign. In 1484, Richard's only legitimate son Edward predeceased
him. Before becoming king, Richard had had a strong power base in the north,
and his reliance on northerners during his reign was to increase resentment in
the south. Richard concluded a truce with Scotland to reduce his commitments in
the north. Nevertheless, resentment against Richard grew. On 7 August 1485, Henry Tudor (a direct descendant through his mother Margaret Beaufort, of John of
Gaunt, one of Edward III's younger sons) landed at Milford Haven in Wales to claim the throne. On 22 August, in a two-hour battle at Bosworth, Henry's forces
(assisted by Lord Stanley's private army of around 7,000 which was deliberately
posted so that he could join the winning side) defeated Richard's larger army
and Richard was killed. Buried without a monument in Leicester, Richard's bones
were scattered during the English Reformation.
THE TUDORS
The five sovereigns of the Tudor dynasty are among the
most well-known figures in Royal history. Of Welsh origin, Henry VII succeeded
in ending the Wars of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York to found the highly successful Tudor house. Henry VII, his son Henry VIII and his
three children Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I ruled for 118 eventful years.
During this period, England developed into one of the
leading European colonial powers, with men such as Sir Walter Raleigh taking
part in the conquest of the New World. Nearer to home, campaigns in Ireland brought the country under strict English control.
Culturally and socially, the Tudor period saw many
changes. The Tudor court played a prominent part in the cultural Renaissance
taking place in Europe, nurturing all-round individuals such as William
Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser and Cardinal Wolsey. The Tudor period also saw the
turbulence of two changes of official religion, resulting in the martyrdom of
many innocent believers of both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The fear
of Roman Catholicism induced by the Reformation was to last for several
centuries and to play an influential role in the history of the Succession.
THE TUDORS
1485 - 1603
HENRY VII = Elizabeth of York,
(1485–1509)
dau. of EDWARD IV
Catherine of (1) = HENRY VIII = (2) Anne
Boleyn, = (3) Jane, dau. Margaret (1) = JAMES
IV,
Aragon, dau. (1509–1547) dau. of
Earl of Sir
John King of Scotland
of FERDINAND
V, of Wiltshire Seymour (1488–1513)
first King of Spain
ELIZABETH I EDWARD VI JAMES
V, = Mary of
MARY I (1547–1553)
(1558–1603) King of Scotland Lorraine,
(1553–1558)
(1513–1542) dau. of Duke
of
Guise
MARY, = Henry, Lord
Queen Darnley
of Scots
(1542–1567,
ex.1587)
THE STUARTS 1603 – 1714 Anne, dau.
of = JAMES VI OF SCOTLAND
FREDERICK II, AND I OF ENGLAND
King of Denmark (1567–1625)
(1603–1625)
Elizabeth = Frederick V, CHARLES I =
Henrietta Maria,
Elector Palatine
(1625– dau. of HENRY IV,
ex.1649) King of France
Sophia = Ernest Augustus,
Elector of Hanover
CHARLES II Mary = WILLIAM II JAMES
II = Anne Hyde,
(1649–1685) of Orange
(1685– dau. of Earl of
GEORGE I
deposed 1688) Clarendon
(1714–1727)
WILLIAM III = MARY
II ANNE
(1689–1702) (1689–1694) (1702–1714)
Joint Sovereigns
HENRY VII (1485-1509 AD)
Henry VII, son of Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort,
was born in 1457. He married Elizabeth of York in 1486, who bore him four
children: Arthur, Henry, Margaret and Mary. He died in 1509 after reigning 24
years.
Henry descended from John of Gaunt, through the
latter's illicit affair with Catherine Swynford; although he was a Lancastrian,
he gained the throne through personal battle. The Lancastrian victory at the
Battle of Bosworth in 1485 left Richard III slain in the field, York ambitions
routed and Henry proclaimed king. From the onset of his reign, Henry was
determined to bring order to England after 85 years of civil war. His marriage
to Elizabeth of York combined both the Lancaster and York factions within the
Tudor line, eliminating further discord in regards to succession. He faced two
insurrections during his reign, each centered around "pretenders" who
claimed a closer dynastic link to the Plantagenets than Henry. Lambert Simnel
posed as the Earl of Warwick, but his army was defeated and he was eventually
pardoned and forced to work in the king's kitchen. Perkin Warbeck posed as
Richard of York, Edward V's younger brother (and co-prisoner in the Tower of London); Warbeck's support came from the continent, and after repeated invasion
attempts, Henry had him imprisoned and executed.
Henry greatly strengthened the monarchy by employing
many political innovations to outmaneuver the nobility. The household staff
rose beyond mere servitude: Henry eschewed public appearances, therefore, staff
members were the few persons Henry saw on a regular basis. He created the
Committee of the Privy Council ,a forerunner of the modern cabinet) as an
executive advisory board; he established the Court of the Star Chamber to
increase royal involvement in civil and criminal cases; and as an alternative
to a revenue tax disbursement from Parliament, he imposed forced loans and
grants on the nobility. Henry's mistrust of the nobility derived from his
experiences in the Wars of the Roses - a majority remained dangerously neutral
until the very end. His skill at by-passing Parliament (and thus, the will of
the nobility) played a crucial role in his success at renovating government.
Henry's political acumen was also evident in his
handling of foreign affairs. He played Spain off of France by arranging the
marriage of his eldest son, Arthur, to Catherine of Aragon, daughter of
Ferdinand and Isabella. Arthur died within months and Henry secured a papal
dispensation for Catherine to marry Arthur's brother, the future Henry VIII;
this single event had the widest-ranging effect of all Henry's actions: Henry
VIII's annulment from Catherine was the impetus for the separation of the
Church of England from the body of Roman Catholicism. The marriage of Henry's
daughter, Margaret, to James IV of Scotland would also have later
repercussions, as the marriage connected the royal families of both England and Scotland, leading the Stuarts to the throne after the extinction of
the Tudor dynasty. Henry encouraged trade and commerce by subsidizing ship
building and entering into lucrative trade agreements, thereby increasing the
wealth of both crown and nation.
Henry failed to appeal to the general populace: he
maintained a distance between king and subject. He brought the nobility to heel
out of necessity to transform the medieval government that he inherited into an
efficient tool for conducting royal business. Law and trade replaced feudal
obligation as the Middle Ages began evolving into the modern world. Francis
Bacon, in his history of Henry VII, described the king as such: "He was of
a high mind, and loved his own will and his own way; as one that revered
himself, and would reign indeed. Had he been a private man he would have been
termed proud: But in a wise Prince, it was but keeping of distance; which
indeed he did towards all; not admitting any near or full approach either to
his power or to his secrets. For he was governed by none."
HENRY VIII (1509-47 AD)
Henry VIII, born in 1491, was the second son of Henry
VII and Elizabeth of York. The significance of Henry's reign is, at times,
overshadowed by his six marriages: dispensing with these forthwith enables a
deeper search into the major themes of the reign. He married Catherine of
Aragon (widow of his brother, Arthur) in 1509, divorcing her in 1533; the union
produced one daughter, Mary. Henry married the pregnant Anne Boleyn in 1533;
she gave him another daughter, Elizabeth, but was executed for infidelity (a
treasonous charge in the king's consort) in May 1536. He married Jane Seymour
by the end of the same month, who died giving birth to Henry's lone male heir,
Edward, in October 1536. Early in 1540, Henry arranged a marriage with Anne of
Cleves, after viewing Hans Holbein's beautiful portrait of the German princess.
In person, alas, Henry found her homely and the marriage was never consummated.
In July 1540, he married the adulterous Catherine Howard - she was executed for
infidelity in March 1542. Catherine Parr became his wife in 1543, providing for
the needs of both Henry and his children until his death in 1547.
The court life initiated by his father evolved into a
cornerstone of Tudor government in the reign of Henry VIII. After his father's
staunch, stolid rule, the energetic, youthful and handsome king avoided
governing in person, much preferring to journey the countryside hunting and
reviewing his subjects. Matters of state were left in the hands of others, most
notably Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York. Cardinal Wolsey virtually ruled England until his failure to secure the papal annulment that Henry needed to marry Anne
Boleyn in 1533. Wolsey was quite capable as Lord Chancellor, but his own
interests were served more than that of the king: as powerful as he was, he
still was subject to Henry's favor - losing Henry's confidence proved to be his
downfall. The early part of Henry's reign, however, saw the young king invade
France, defeat Scottish forces at the Battle of Foldden Field (in which James
IV of Scotland was slain), and write a treatise denouncing Martin Luther's Reformist
ideals, for which the pope awarded Henry the title "Defender of the
Faith".
The 1530's witnessed Henry's growing involvement in
government, and a series of events which greatly altered England, as well as
the whole of Western Christendom: the separation of the Church of England from
Roman Catholicism. The separation was actually a by-product of Henry's
obsession with producing a male heir; Catherine of Aragon failed to produce a
male and the need to maintain dynastic legitimacy forced Henry to seek an
annulment from the pope in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Wolsey tried repeatedly
to secure a legal annulment from Pope Clement VII, but Clement was beholden to
the Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and nephew of Catherine. Henry summoned the
Reformation Parliament in 1529, which passed 137 statutes in seven years and
exercised an influence in political and ecclesiastic affairs which was unknown
to feudal parliaments. Religious reform movements had already taken hold in England, but on a small scale: the Lollards had been in existence since the mid-fourteenth
century and the ideas of Luther and Zwingli circulated within intellectual
groups, but continental Protestantism had yet to find favor with the English
people. The break from Rome was accomplished through law, not social outcry;
Henry, as Supreme Head of the Church of England, acknowledged this by slight
alterations in worship ritual instead of a wholesale reworking of religious
dogma. England moved into an era of "conformity of mind" with the new
royal supremacy (much akin to the absolutism of France's Louis XIV): by 1536,
all ecclesiastical and government officials were required to publicly approve
of the break with Rome and take an oath of loyalty. The king moved away from
the medieval idea of ruler as chief lawmaker and overseer of civil behavior, to
the modern idea of ruler as the ideological icon of the state.
The remainder of Henry's reign was anticlimactic. Anne
Boleyn lasted only three years before her execution; she was replaced by Jane
Seymour, who laid Henry's dynastic problems to rest with the birth of Edward
VI. Fragmented noble factions involved in the Wars of the Roses found
themselves reduced to vying for the king's favor in court. Reformist factions
won the king's confidence and vastly benefiting from Henry's dissolution of the
monasteries, as monastic lands and revenues went either to the crown or the
nobility. The royal staff continued the rise in status that began under Henry
VII, eventually to rival the power of the nobility. Two men, in particular,
were prominent figures through the latter stages of Henry's reign: Thomas
Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer. Cromwell, an efficient administrator, succeeded
Wolsey as Lord Chancellor, creating new governmental departments for the
varying types of revenue and establishing parish priest's duty of recording
births, baptisms, marriages and deaths. Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury,
dealt with and guided changes in ecclesiastical policy and oversaw the
dissolution of the monasteries.
Henry VIII built upon the innovations instituted by
his father. The break with Rome, coupled with an increase in governmental
bureaucracy, led to the royal supremacy that would last until the execution of
Charles I and the establishment of the Commonwealth one hundred years after
Henry's death. Henry was beloved by his subjects, facing only one major
insurrection, the Pilgrimage of Grace, enacted by the northernmost counties in
retaliation to the break with Rome and the poor economic state of the region.
History remembers Henry in much the same way as Piero Pasqualigo, a Venetian
ambassador: "... he is in every respect a most accomplished prince."
EDWARD VI (1547-1553 AD)
Edward VI, son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, was
born in 1537. He ascended the throne at age nine, upon the death of his father.
He was betrothed to his cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, but deteriorating
English-Scot relations prohibited their marriage. The frail, Protestant boy
died of consumption at age sixteen having never married. Edward's reign was
beset by problems from the onset. Ascending the throne while stillin his
minority presented a backdrop for factional in fighting and power plays. Henry
VIII, in his last days, sought to eliminate this potential problem by decreeing
that a Council of Regency would govern until the child came of age, but Edward
Seymour (Edward VI's uncle) gained the upper hand. The Council offered Seymour the Protectorship of the realm and the Dukedom of Somerset; he genuinely cared for
both the boy and the realm, but used the Protectorship, as well as Edward's
religious radicalism, to further his Protestant interests. The Book of Common
Prayer, the eloquent work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, was instituted in 1549
as a handbook to the new style of worship that skated controversial issues in
an effort to pacify Catholics. Henrician treason and heresy laws were repealed,
transforming England into a haven for continental heretics. Catholics were
pleased with the softer version of Protestantism, but radical Protestants
clamored for further reforms, adding to the ever-present factional discord.
Economic hardship plagued England during Edward's rule and foreign relations
were in a state of disarray. The new faith and the dissolution of the
monasteries left a considerable amount of ecclesiastical officials out of work,
at a time when unemployment soared; enclosure of monastic lands deprived many
peasants of their means of subsistence. The coinage lost value as new coins
were minted from inferior metals, as specie from the New World flooded English
markets. A French/Scottish alliance threatened England, prompting Somerset to invade Scotland, where Scottish forces were trounced at Pinkie. Then general
unrest and factional maneuvering proved Somerset's undoing; he was executed in
September 1552. Thus began one of the most corrupt eras of English political
history. The author of this corruption was the Earl of Warwick, John Dudley. Dudley was an ambitious political survivor driven by the desire to become the largest
landowner in England. Dudley coerced Edward by claiming that the boy had
reached manhood on his 12th birthday and was now ready to rule; Dudley also held Edward's purse strings. Dudley was created Duke of Northumberland and
virtually ruled England, although he had no official title. The Council, under
his leadership, systematically confiscated church territories, as the recent
wave of radical Protestantism seemed a logical, and justifiable, continuation
of Henrician reform. Northumberland's ambitions grew in proportion to his gains
of power: he desperately sought to connect himself to the royal family.
Northumberland was given the opportunity to indulge in king making - the
practice by which an influential noble named the next successor, such as
Richard Neville during the Wars of the Roses - when Edward was diagnosed with
consumption in January 1553. Henry VIII named the line of succession in his
will;next in line after Edward were his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, followed by
the descendants of Henry's sister, Mary: Frances Grey and her children.
Northumberland convinced Edward that his Catholic sister, Mary, would ruin the
Protestant reforms enacted throughout the reign; in actuality, he knew Mary
would restore Catholicism and return the confiscated Church territories which
were making the Council very rich. Northumberland's appeal to Edward's
radicalism worked as intended: the dying lad declared his sisters to be
bastards and passed the succession to Frances Grey's daughter, Lady Jane Grey,
one of the boy's only true friends. Northumberland impelled the Greys to
consent to a marriage between his son, Guildford and Lady Jane. Edward died on July 6, 1553, leaving a disputed succession. Jane, against her wishes, was declared queen
by the Council. Mary retreated to Framlingham in Suffolk and claimed the
throne. Northumberland took an army to capture Mary, but bungled the escapade.
The Council abandoned Northumberland as Mary collected popular support and rode
triumphantly into London. Jane after a reign of only nine days, was imprisoned
in the Tower of London until her 1554 execution at the hands of her cousin
Mary. Edward was a highly intellectual and pious lad who fell prey to the
machinations of his powerful Council of Regency. His frailty led to an early
death. Had he lived into manhood, he potentially could have become one of England's greatest kings. Jane Austen wrote, "This Man was on the whole of a very
amiable character...", to which Beckett added, " as docile as a lamb,
if indeed his gentleness did not amount to absolute sheepishness."
LADY JANE GREY (10-19 July 1553)
The Accession of Lady Jane Grey was engineered by the
powerful Duke of Northumberland, President of the King's Council, in the
interests of promoting his own dynastic line. Northumberland persuaded the
sickly Edward VI to name Lady Jane Grey as his heir. As one of Henry VIII's
great-nieces, the young girl was a genuine claimant to the throne.
Northumberland then married his own son, Lord Guilford Dudley, to Lady Jane. On
the death of Edward, Jane assumed the throne and her claim was recognised by
the Council. Despite this, the country rallied to Mary, Catherine of Aragon's
daughter and a devout Roman Catholic. Jane reigned for only nine days and was
later executed with her husband in 1554.
MARY I (1553-1558)
Mary I was the first
Queen Regnant (that is, a queen reigning in her own right rather than a queen
through marriage to a king). Courageous and stubborn, her character was moulded
by her earlier years: an Act of Parliament in 1533 had declared her
illegitimate and removed her from the succession to the throne (she was
reinstated in 1544, but her half-brother Edward removed her from the succession
once more shortly before his death), whilst she was pressurised to give up the
Mass and acknowledge the English Protestant Church.
Mary restored papal supremacy in England, abandoned the title of Supreme Head of the Church, reintroduced Roman Catholic
bishops and began the slow reintroduction of monastic orders. Mary also revived
the old heresy laws to secure the religious conversion of the country; heresy
was regarded as a religious and civil offence amounting to treason (to believe
in a different religion from the Sovereign was an act of defiance and
disloyalty). As a result, around 300 Protestant heretics were burnt in three
years - apart from eminent Protestant clergy such as Cranmer (a former
archbishop and author of two Books of Common Prayer), Latimer and Ridley, these
heretics were mostly poor and self-taught people. Apart from making Mary deeply
unpopular, such treatment demonstrated that people were prepared to die for the
Protestant settlement established in Henry's reign. The progress of Mary's
conversion of the country was also limited by the vested interests of the
aristocracy and gentry who had bought the monastic lands sold off after the
Dissolution of the Monasteries, and who refused to return these possessions
voluntarily as Mary invited them to do.
Aged 37 at her accession, Mary wished to marry and
have children, thus leaving a Catholic heir to consolidate her religious
reforms, and removing her half-sister Elizabeth (a focus for Protestant
opposition) from direct succession. Mary's decision to marry Philip, King of
Spain from 1556, in 1554 was very unpopular; the protest from the Commons
prompted Mary's reply that Parliament was 'not accustomed to use such language
to the Kings of England' and that in her marriage 'she would choose as God
inspired her'. The marriage was childless, Philip spent most of it on the
continent, England obtained no share in the Spanish monopolies in New World trade and the alliance with Spain dragged England into a war with France. Popular discontent grew when Calais, the last vestige of England's possessions in France dating from William the Conqueror's time, was captured by the French in 1558. Dogged
by ill health, Mary died later that year, possibly from cancer, leaving the
crown to her half-sister Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH I (1558-1603)
Elizabeth I - the last Tudor monarch - was born at Greenwich on 7 September 1533, the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne
Boleyn. Her early life was full of uncertainties, and her chances of succeeding
to the throne seemed very slight once her half-brother Edward was born in 1537.
She was then third in line behind her Roman Catholic half-sister, Princess
Mary. Roman Catholics, indeed, always considered her illegitimate and she only
narrowly escaped execution in the wake of a failed rebellion against Queen Mary
in 1554.
Elizabeth succeeded
to the throne on her half-sister's death in November 1558. She was very
well-educated (fluent in six languages), and had inherited intelligence,
determination and shrewdness from both parents. Her 45-year reign is generally
considered one of the most glorious in English history. During it a secure
Church of England was established. Its doctrines were laid down in the 39
Articles of 1563, a compromise between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Elizabeth herself refused to 'make windows into men's souls ... there is only
one Jesus Christ and all the rest is a dispute over trifles'; she asked for
outward uniformity. Most of her subjects accepted the compromise as the basis
of their faith, and her church settlement probably saved England from religious wars like those which France suffered in the second half of the 16th
century.
Although autocratic and capricious, Elizabeth had
astute political judgement and chose her ministers well; these included
Burghley (Secretary of State), Hatton (Lord Chancellor) and Walsingham (in
charge of intelligence and also a Secretary of State). Overall, Elizabeth's administration consisted of some 600 officials administering the great offices
of state, and a similar number dealing with the Crown lands (which funded the
administrative costs). Social and economic regulation and law and order
remained in the hands of the sheriffs at local level, supported by unpaid
justices of the peace.
Elizabeth's reign
also saw many brave voyages of discovery, including those of Francis Drake,
Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert, particularly to the Americas. These expeditions prepared England for an age of colonisation and trade
expansion, which Elizabeth herself recognised by establishing the East India
Company in 1600.
The arts flourished during Elizabeth's reign. Country
houses such as Longleat and Hardwick Hall were built, miniature painting reached
its high point, theatres thrived - the Queen attended the first performance of
Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The image of Elizabeth's reign is one
of triumph and success. The Queen herself was often called 'Gloriana', 'Good
Queen Bess' and 'The Virgin Queen'. Investing in expensive clothes and
jewellery (to look the part, like all contemporary sovereigns), she cultivated
this image by touring the country in regional visits known as 'progresses',
often riding on horseback rather than by carriage. Elizabeth made at least 25
progresses during her reign.
However, Elizabeth's reign was one of considerable
danger and difficulty for many, with threats of invasion from Spain through Ireland, and from France through Scotland. Much of northern England was in rebellion in 1569-70. A papal bull of 1570 specifically released Elizabeth's subjects from their allegiance, and she passed harsh laws against Roman
Catholics after plots against her life were discovered. One such plot involved
Mary, Queen of Scots, who had fled to England in 1568 after her second
husband's murder and her subsequent marriage to a man believed to have been
involved in his murder. As a likely successor to Elizabeth, Mary spent 19 years
as Elizabeth's prisoner because Mary was the focus for rebellion and possible
assassination plots, such as the Babington Plot of 1586. Mary was also a
temptation for potential invaders such as Philip II. In a letter of 1586 to
Mary, Elizabeth wrote, 'You have planned ... to take my life and ruin my kingdom
... I never proceeded so harshly against you.' Despite Elizabeth's reluctance
to take drastic action, on the insistence of Parliament and her advisers, Mary
was tried, found guilty and executed in 1587.
In 1588, aided by bad weather, the English navy scored
a great victory over the Spanish invasion fleet of around 130 ships - the
'Armada'. The Armada was intended to overthrow the Queen and re-establish Roman
Catholicism by conquest, as Philip II believed he had a claim to the English
throne through his marriage to Mary.
During Elizabeth's long reign, the nation also
suffered from high prices and severe economic depression, especially in the
countryside, during the 1590s. The war against Spain was not very successful
after the Armada had been beaten and, together with other campaigns, it was
very costly. Though she kept a tight rein on government expenditure, Elizabeth left large debts to her successor. Wars during Elizabeth's reign are estimated
to have cost over £5 million (at the prices of the time) which Crown
revenues could not match - in 1588, for example, Elizabeth's total annual
revenue amounted to some £392,000. Despite the combination of financial
strains and prolonged war after 1588, Parliament was not summoned more often.
There were only 16 sittings of the Commons during Elizabeth's reign, five of
which were in the period 1588-1601. Although Elizabeth freely used her power to
veto legislation, she avoided confrontation and did not attempt to define
Parliament's constitutional position and rights.
Elizabeth chose never
to marry. If she had chosen a foreign prince, he would have drawn England into foreign policies for his own advantages (as in her sister Mary's marriage to
Philip of Spain); marrying a fellow countryman could have drawn the Queen into
factional infighting. Elizabeth used her marriage prospects as a political tool
in foreign and domestic policies. However, the 'Virgin Queen' was presented as
a selfless woman who sacrificed personal happiness for the good of the nation,
to which she was, in essence, 'married'. Late in her reign, she addressed
Parliament in the so-called 'Golden Speech' of 1601 when she told MPs: 'There
is no jewel, be it of never so high a price, which I set before this jewel; I
mean your love.' She seems to have been very popular with the vast majority of
her subjects.
Overall, Elizabeth's always shrewd and, when
necessary, decisive leadership brought successes during a period of great
danger both at home and abroad. She died at Richmond Palace on 24 March 1603, having become a legend in her lifetime. The date of her accession was a
national holiday for two hundred years.
THE STUARTS
The Stuarts were the first kings of the United Kingdom. King James I of England who began the period was also King James VI of Scotland, thus combining the two thrones for the first time.
The Stuart dynasty reigned in England and Scotland from 1603 to 1714, a period which saw a flourishing Court culture
but also much upheaval and instability, of plague, fire and war. It was an age
of intense religious debate and radical politics. Both contributed to a bloody
civil war in the mid-seventeenth century between Crown and Parliament (the
Cavaliers and the Roundheads), resulting in a parliamentary victory for Oliver
Cromwell and the dramatic execution of King Charles I. There was a short-lived
republic, the first time that the country had experienced such an event. The
Restoration of the Crown was soon followed by another 'Glorious' Revolution.
William and Mary of Orange ascended the throne as joint monarchs and defenders
of Protestantism, followed by Queen Anne, the second of James II's daughters.
The end of the Stuart line with the death of Queen
Anne led to the drawing up of the Act of Settlement in 1701, which provided
that only Protestants could hold the throne. The next in line according to the
provisions of this act was George of Hanover, yet Stuart princes remained in
the wings. The Stuart legacy was to linger on in the form of claimants to the
Crown for another century.
JAMES I (1603-25 AD)
James I was born in 1566 to Mary Queen of Scots and
her second husband, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. He descended from the Tudors
through Margaret, daughter of Henry VII : both Mary Queen of Scots and Henry
Stewart were grandchildren of Margaret Tudor. James ascended the Scottish
throne upon the abdication of his mother in 1567, but Scotland was ruled by regent untilJames reached his majority. He married Anne of Denmark in
1589, who bore him three sons and four daughters: Henry, Elizabeth, Margaret,
Charles, Robert, Mary and Sophia. He was named successor to the English throne
by his cousin, Elizabeth I and ascended that throne in 1603. James died of a
stroke in 1625 after ruling Scotland for 58 years and England for 22 years.
James was profoundly affected by his years as a boy in
Scottish court. Murder and intrigue had plagued the Scottish throne throughout
the reigns of his mother and grandfather (James V) and had no less bearing
during James's rule. His father had been butchered mere months after James'
birth by enemies of Mary and Mary, because of her indiscretions and Catholic
faith, was forced to abdicate the throne. Thus, James developed a guarded
manner. He was thrilled to take the English crown and leave the strictures and
poverty of the Scottish court.
James' twenty-nine years of Scottish kingship did
little to prepare him for the English monarchy: England and Scotland, rivals for superiority on the island since the first emigration of the
Anglo-Saxon races, virtually hated each other. This inherent mistrust, combined
with Catholic-Protestant and Episcopal-Puritan tensions, severely limited
James' prospects of a truly successful reign. His personality also caused
problems: he was witty and well-read, fiercely believed in the divine right of
kingship and his own importance, but found great difficulty in gaining
acceptance from an English society that found his rough-hewn manners and
natural paranoia quite unbecoming. James saw little use for Parliament. His
extravagant spending habits and nonchalant ignoring of the nobility's
grievances kept king and Parliament constantly at odds. He came to the thrown
at the zenith of monarchical power, but never truly grasped the depth and scope
of that power.
Religious dissension was the basis of an event that confirmed
and fueled James' paranoia: the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605. Guy Fawkes and four other Catholic dissenters were caught attempting to blow up the House
of Lords on a day in which the king was to open the session. The conspirators
were executed, but a fresh wave of anti-Catholic sentiments washed across England. James also disliked the Puritans who became excessive in their demands on the
king, resulting in the first wave of English immigrants to North America.
James, however, did manage to commission an Authorized Version of the Bible,
printed in English in 1611.
The relationship between king and Parliament steadily
eroded. Extravagant spending (particularly on James' favorites), inflation and
bungled foreign policies discredited James in the eyes of Parliament.
Parliament flatly refused to disburse funds to a king who ignored their
concerns and were annoyed by rewards lavished on favorites and great amounts
spent on decoration. James awarded over 200 peerages (landed titles) as,
essentially, bribes designed to win loyalty, the most controversial of which
was his creation of George Villiers (his closest advisor and homosexual
partner) as Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham was highly influential in foreign
policy, which failed miserably. James tried to kindle Spanish relations by
seeking a marriage between his son Charles and the Spanish Infanta (who was
less than receptive to the clumsy overtures of Charles and Buckingham), and by
executing Sir Walter Raleigh at the behest of Spain.
James was not wholly unsuccessful as king, but his
Scottish background failed to translate well into a changing English society.
He is described, albeit humorously, in 1066 and All That, as such: "James
I slobbered at the mouth and had favourites; he was thus a bad king"; Sir
Anthony Weldon made a more somber observation: "He was very crafty and
cunning in petty things, as the circumventing any great man, the change of a
Favourite, &c. inasmuch as a very wise man was wont to say, he believed him
the very wisest fool in Christendom."
CHARLES I (1625-49)
Charles I was born in
Fife on 19 November 1600, the second son of James VI of Scotland (from 1603 also James I of England) and Anne of Denmark. He became heir to the
throne on the death of his brother, Prince Henry, in 1612. He succeeded, as the
second Stuart King of England, in 1625.
Controversy and disputes dogged Charles throughout his
reign. They eventually led to civil wars, first with the Scots from 1637 and
later in England (1642-46 and 1648). The Civil Wars deeply divided people at
the time, and historians still disagree about the real causes of the conflict,
but it is clear that Charles was not a successful ruler.
Charles was reserved (he had a residual stammer),
self-righteous and had a high concept of royal authority, believing in the
divine right of kings. He was a good linguist and a sensitive man of refined
tastes. He spent a lot on the arts, inviting the artists Van Dyck and Rubens to
work in England, and buying a great collection of paintings by Raphael and
Titian (this collection was later dispersed under Cromwell). His expenditure on
his court and his picture collection greatly increased the crown's debts.
Indeed, crippling lack of money was a key problem for both the early Stuart
monarchs.
Charles was also deeply religious. He favoured the
high Anglican form of worship, with much ritual, while many of his subjects,
particularly in Scotland, wanted plainer forms. Charles found himself ever more
in disagreement on religious and financial matters with many leading citizens.
Having broken an engagement to the Spanish infanta, he had married a Roman
Catholic, Henrietta Maria of France, and this only made matters worse. Although
Charles had promised Parliament in 1624 that there would be no advantages for
recusants (people refusing to attend Church of England services), were he to
marry a Roman Catholic bride, the French insisted on a commitment to remove all
disabilities upon Roman Catholic subjects. Charles's lack of scruple was shown
by the fact that this commitment was secretly added to the marriage treaty,
despite his promise to Parliament.
Charles had inherited disagreements with Parliament
from his father, but his own actions (particularly engaging in ill-fated wars
with France and Spain at the same time) eventually brought about a crisis in
1628-29. Two expeditions to France failed - one of which had been led by
Buckingham, a royal favourite of both James I and Charles I, who had gained
political influence and military power. Such was the general dislike of Buckingham,
that he was impeached by Parliament in 1628, although he was murdered by a
fanatic before he could lead the second expedition to France. The political controversy over Buckingham demonstrated that, although the monarch's
right to choose his own Ministers was accepted as an essential part of the
royal prerogative, Ministers had to be acceptable to Parliament or there would
be repeated confrontations. The King's chief opponent in Parliament until 1629
was Sir John Eliot, who was finally imprisoned in the Tower of London until his death in 1632.
Tensions between the King and Parliament centred
around finances, made worse by the costs of war abroad, and by religious
suspicions at home (Charles's marriage was seen as ominous, at a time when
plots against Elizabeth I and the Gunpowder Plot in James I's reign were still
fresh in the collective memory, and when the Protestant cause was going badly
in the war in Europe). In the first four years of his rule, Charles was faced
with the alternative of either obtaining parliamentary funding and having his
policies questioned by argumentative Parliaments who linked the issue of supply
to remedying their grievances, or conducting a war without subsidies from
Parliament. Charles dismissed his fourth Parliament in March 1629 and decided
to make do without either its advice or the taxes which it alone could grant
legally.
Although opponents later called this period 'the
Eleven Years' Tyranny', Charles's decision to rule without Parliament was
technically within the King's royal prerogative, and the absence of a
Parliament was less of a grievance to many people than the efforts to raise
revenue by non-parliamentary means. Charles's leading advisers, including
William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Strafford, were
efficient but disliked. For much of the 1630s, the King gained most of the
income he needed from such measures as impositions, exploitation of forest
laws, forced loans, wardship and, above all, ship money (extended in 1635 from
ports to the whole country). These measures made him very unpopular, alienating
many who were the natural supporters of the Crown.
Scotland (which
Charles had left at the age of 3, returning only for his coronation in 1633)
proved the catalyst for rebellion. Charles's attempt to impose a High Church liturgy and prayer book in Scotland had prompted a riot in 1637 in Edinburgh which escalated into general unrest. Charles had to recall Parliament; however,
the Short Parliament of April 1640 queried Charles's request for funds for war
against the Scots and was dissolved within weeks. The Scots occupied Newcastle and, under the treaty of Ripon, stayed in occupation of Northumberland and Durham and they were to be paid a subsidy until their grievances were redressed.
Charles was finally forced to call another Parliament
in November 1640. This one, which came to be known as The Long Parliament,
started with the imprisonment of Laud and Strafford (the latter was executed
within six months, after a Bill of Attainder which did not allow for a
defence), and the abolition of the King's Council (Star Chamber), and moved on
to declare ship money and other fines illegal. The King agreed that Parliament
could not be dissolved without its own consent, and the Triennial Act of 1641
meant that no more than three years could elapse between Parliaments.
The Irish uprising of October 1641 raised tensions
between the King and Parliament over the command of the Army. Parliament issued
a Grand Remonstrance repeating their grievances, impeached 12 bishops and
attempted to impeach the Queen. Charles responded by entering the Commons in a
failed attempt to arrest five Members of Parliament, who had fled before his
arrival. Parliament reacted by passing a Militia Bill allowing troops to be
raised only under officers approved by Parliament. Finally, on 22 August 1642 at Nottingham, Charles raised the Royal Standard calling for loyal subjects
to support him (Oxford was to be the King's capital during the war). The Civil
War, what Sir William Waller (a Parliamentary general and moderate) called
'this war without an enemy', had begun.
The Battle of Edgehill in October 1642 showed that
early on the fighting was even. Broadly speaking, Charles retained the north,
west and south-west of the country, and Parliament had London, East Anglia and
the south-east, although there were pockets of resistance everywhere, ranging
from solitary garrisons to whole cities. However, the Navy sided with
Parliament (which made continental aid difficult), and Charles lacked the resources
to hire substantial mercenary help.
Parliament had entered an armed alliance with the
predominant Scottish Presbyterian group under the Solemn League and Covenant of
1643, and from 1644 onwards Parliament's armies gained the upper hand - particularly
with the improved training and discipline of the New Model Army. The
Self-Denying Ordinance was passed to exclude Members of Parliament from holding
army commands, thereby getting rid of vacillating or incompetent earlier
Parliamentary generals. Under strong generals like Sir Thomas Fairfax and
Oliver Cromwell, Parliament won victories at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645). The capture of the King's secret correspondence after Naseby showed the
extent to which he had been seeking help from Ireland and from the Continent,
which alienated many moderate supporters.
In May 1646, Charles placed himself in the hands of
the Scottish Army (who handed him to the English Parliament after nine months
in return for arrears of payment - the Scots had failed to win Charles's
support for establishing Presbyterianism in England). Charles did not see his
action as surrender, but as an opportunity to regain lost ground by playing one
group off against another; he saw the monarchy as the source of stability and
told parliamentary commanders 'you cannot be without me: you will fall to ruin
if I do not sustain you'. In Scotland and Ireland, factions were arguing,
whilst in England there were signs of division in Parliament between the
Presbyterians and the Independents, with alienation from the Army (where
radical doctrines such as that of the Levellers were threatening commanders'
authority). Charles's negotiations continued from his captivity at Carisbrooke
Castle on the Isle of Wight (to which he had 'escaped' from Hampton Court in
November 1647) and led to the Engagement with the Scots, under which the Scots
would provide an army for Charles in exchange for the imposition of the
Covenant on England. This led to the second Civil War of 1648, which ended with
Cromwell's victory at Preston in August.
The Army, concluding that permanent peace was
impossible whilst Charles lived, decided that the King must be put on trial and
executed. In December, Parliament was purged, leaving a small rump totally
dependent on the Army, and the Rump Parliament established a High Court of
Justice in the first week of January 1649. On 20 January, Charles was charged
with high treason 'against the realm of England'. Charles refused to plead,
saying that he did not recognise the legality of the High Court (it had been
established by a Commons purged of dissent, and without the House of Lords -
nor had the Commons ever acted as a judicature).
The King was sentenced to death on 27 January. Three
days later, Charles was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London. The King asked for warm clothing before his execution: 'the season is
so sharp as probably may make me shake, which some observers may imagine
proceeds from fear. I would have no such imputation.' On the scaffold, he
repeated his case: 'I must tell you that the liberty and freedom [of the
people] consists in having of Government, those laws by which their life and
their goods may be most their own. It is not for having share in Government,
Sir, that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean
different things. If I would have given way to an arbitrary way, for to have
all laws changed according to the Power of the Sword, I needed not to have come
here, and therefore I tell you ... that I am the martyr of the people.' His
final words were 'I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no
disturbance can be.'
The King was buried on 9 February at Windsor, rather
than Westminster Abbey, to avoid public disorder. To avoid the automatic
succession of Charles I's son Charles, an Act was passed on 30 January
forbidding the proclaiming of another monarch. On 7 February 1649, the office of King was formally abolished.
The
Civil Wars were essentially confrontations between the monarchy and Parliament
over the definitions of the powers of the monarchy and Parliament's authority.
These constitutional disagreements were made worse by religious animosities and
financial disputes. Both sides claimed that they stood for the rule of law, yet
civil war was by definition a matter of force. Charles I, in his unwavering
belief that he stood for constitutional and social stability, and the right of
the people to enjoy the benefits of that stability, fatally weakened his
position by failing to negotiate a compromise with Parliament and paid the
price. To many, Charles was seen as a martyr for his people and, to this day,
wreaths of remembrance are laid by his supporters on the anniversary of his
death at his statue, which faces down Whitehall to the site of his execution.
THE COMMONWEALTH INTERREGNUM (1649-1660)
Cromwell's convincing military successes at Drogheda in Ireland (1649), Dunbar in Scotland (1650) and Worcester in England (1651) forced Charles I's son, Charles, into foreign exile despite being accepted
as King in Scotland.
From 1649 to 1660, England was therefore a republic
during a period known as the Interregnum ('between reigns'). A series of
political experiments followed, as the country's rulers tried to redefine and
establish a workable constitution without a monarchy.
Throughout the Interregnum, Cromwell's relationship
with Parliament was a troubled one, with tensions over the nature of the
constitution and the issue of supremacy, control of the armed forces and debate
over religious toleration. In 1653 Parliament was dissolved, and under the
Instrument of Government, Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector, later refusing
the offer of the throne. Further disputes with the House of Commons followed;
at one stage Cromwell resorted to regional rule by a number of the army's major
generals. After Cromwell's death in 1658, and the failure of his son Richard's
short-lived Protectorate, the army under General Monk invited Charles I's son,
Charles, to become King.
OLIVER CROMWELL (1649-1658)
Oliver Cromwell, born in Huntingdon in 1599, was a
strict Puritan with a Cambridge education when he went to London to represent
his family in Parliament. Clothed conservatively, he possessed a Puritan fervor
and a commanding voice, he quickly made a name for himself by serving in both
the Short Parliament (April 1640) and the Long Parliament (August 1640 through
April 1660). Charles I, pushing his finances to bankruptcy and trying to force
a new prayer book on Scotland, was badly beaten by the Scots, who demanded £850 per
day from the English until the two sides reached agreement. Charles had no
choice but to summon Parliament.
The Long Parliament, taking an aggressive stance,
steadfastly refused to authorize any funding until Charles was brought to heel.
The Triennial Act of 1641 assured the summoning of Parliament at least every
three years, a formidable challenge to royal prerogative. The Tudor
institutions of fiscal feudalism (manipulating antiquated feudal fealty laws to
extract money), the Court of the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission
were declared illegal by Act of Parliament later in 1641. A new era of
leadership from the House of Commons (backed by middle class merchants,
tradesmen and Puritans) had commenced. Parliament resented the insincerity with
which Charles settled with both them and the Scots, and despised his links with
Catholicism.
1642 was a banner year for Parliament. They stripped
Charles of the last vestiges of prerogative by abolishing episcopacy, placed
the army and navy directly under parliamentary supervision and declared this
bill become law even if the king refused his signature. Charles entered the
House of Commons (the first king to do so), intent on arresting John Pym, the
leader of Parliament and four others, but the five conspirators had already
fled, making the king appear inept. Charles traveled north to recruit an army
and raised his standard against the forces of Parliaments (Roundheads) at Nottingham on August 22, 1642. England was again embroiled in civil war.
Cromwell added sixty horses to the Roundhead cause
when war broke out. In the 1642 Battle at Edge Hill, the Roundheads were
defeated by the superior Royalist (Cavalier) cavalry, prompting Cromwell to
build a trained cavalry. Cromwell proved most capable as a military leader. By
the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, Cromwell's New Model Army had routed
Cavalier forces and Cromwell earned the nickname "Ironsides" in the
process. Fighting lasted until July 1645 at the final Cavalier defeat at Naseby. Within a year, Charles surrendered to the Scots, who turned him over to Parliament.
By 1646, England was ruled solely by Parliament, although the king was not
executed until 1649.
English society splintered into many factions:
Levellers (intent on eradicating economic castes), Puritans, Episcopalians,
remnants of the Cavaliers and other religious and political radicals argued
over the fate of the realm. The sole source of authority rest with the army,
who moved quickly to end the debates. In November 1648, the Long Parliament was
reduced to a "Rump" Parliament by the forced removal of 110 members
of Parliament by Cromwell's army, with another 160 members refusing to take
their seats in opposition to the action. The remainder, barely enough for a
quorum, embarked on an expedition of constitutional change. The Rump dismantled
the machinery of government, most of that, remained loyal to the king,
abolishing not only the monarchy, but also the Privy Council, Courts of
Exchequer and Admiralty and even the House of Lords. England was ruled by an
executive Council of State and the Rump Parliament, with various subcommittees
dealing with day-to-day affairs. Of great importance was the administration in
the shires and parishes: the machinery administering such governments was left intact;
ingrained habits of ruling and obeying harkened back to monarchy.
With the death of the ancient constitution and
Parliament in control, attention was turned to crushing rebellions in the
realm, as well as in Ireland and Scotland. Cromwell forced submission from the
nobility, muzzled the press and defeated Leveller rebels in Burford.
Annihilating the more radical elements of revolution resulted in political
conservatism, which eventually led to the restoration of the monarchy.
Cromwell's army slaughtered over forty percent of the indigenous Irishmen, who
clung unyieldingly to Catholicism and loyalist sentiments; the remaining
Irishmen were forcibly transported to County Connaught with the Act of
Settlement in 1653. Scottish Presbyterians fought for a Stuart restoration, in
the person of Charles II, but were handily defeated, ending the last remnants
of civil war. The army then turned its attention to internal matters.
The Rump devolved into a petty, self-perpetuating and
unbending oligarchy, which lost credibility in the eyes of the army. Cromwell
ended the Rump Parliament with great indignity on April 21, 1653, ordering the house cleared at the point of a sword. The army called for a new Parliament of
Puritan saints, who proved as inept as the Rump. By 1655, Cromwell dissolved
his new Parliament, choosing to rule alone (much like Charles I had done in
1629). The cost of keeping a standard army of 35,000 proved financially
incompatible with Cromwell's monetarily strapped government. Two wars with the Dutch
concerning trade abroad added to Cromwell's financial burdens.
The military's solution was to form yet another
version of Parliament. A House of Peers was created, packed with Cromwell's
supporters and with true veto power, but the Commons proved most antagonistic
towards Cromwell. The monarchy was restored in all but name; Cromwell went from
the title of Lord General of the Army to that of Lord Protector of the Realm
(the title of king was suggested, but wisely rejected by Cromwell when a furor
arose in the military ranks). The Lord Protector died on September 3, 1658, naming his son Richard as successor. With Cromwell's death, the Commonwealth
floundered and the monarchy was restored only two years later.
The failure of Cromwell and the Commonwealth was
founded upon Cromwell being caught between opposing forces. His attempts to
placate the army, the nobility, Puritans and Parliament resulted in the
alienation of each group. Leaving the political machinery of the parishes and
shires untouched under the new constitution was the height of inconsistency;
Cromwell, the army and Parliament were unable to make a clear separation from
the ancient constitution and traditional customs of loyalty and obedience to
monarchy. Lacey Baldwin Smith cast an astute judgment concerning the aims of
the Commonwealth: "When Commons was purged out of existence by a military
force of its own creation, the country learned a profound, if bitter, Lesson:
Parliament could no more exist without the crown than the crown without Parliament.
The ancient constitution had never been King and Parliament but King in
Parliament; when one element of that mystical union was destroyed, the other
ultimately perished."
Oliver Cromwell: Lord Protector of England (1599-1658)
There is definitely an association between John Knox
and Oliver Cromwell. Knox, in his book The Reformation of Scotland, outlined
the whole process without which the British model of government under Oliver
Cromwell never would not have been possible. Yet Knox was more consistently
covenantal in his thinking. He recognized that civil government is based on a
covenant between the magistrate (or the representative or king) and the
populace. His view was that when the magistrate defects from the covenant, it
is the duty of the people to overthrow him.
Cromwell was not a learned scholar, as was Knox,
nevertheless God elevated him to a greater leadership role. Oliver Cromwell was
born into a common family of English country Puritans having none of the
advantages of upbringing that would prepare him to be leader of a nation. Yet
he had a God-given ability to earn the loyalty and respect of men of genius who
served him throughout his lifetime. John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress
served under his command in the English Civil War, and John Milton, who penned
Paradise Lost, served as his personal secretary.
Cromwell's early years were ordinary, but after a
conversion experience at age 27, he was seized by a sense of divine destiny. He
became suddenly zealous for God. He was a country squire, a bronze-faced,
callous-handed man of property. He worked on his farm, prayed and fasted often
and occasionally exhorted the local congregation during church meetings. A
quiet, simple, serious-minded man, he spoke little. But when he broke his silence,
it was with great authority as he commanded obedience without question or
dispute. As a justice of the peace, he attracted attention to himself by
collaring loafers at a tavern and forcing them to join in singing a hymn. This
exploit together with quieting a disturbance among some student factions at the
neighboring town of Cambridge earned him the respect of the Puritan locals and
they sent him to Parliament as their representative. There he attracted
attention with his blunt, forcible speech as a member of the Independent Party
which was made up of Puritans.
The English people were bent upon the establishment of
a democratic parliamentary system of civil government and the elimination of
the "Divine Right of Kings." King Charles I, the tyrant who had long
persecuted the English Puritans by having their ears cut off and their noses
slit for defying his attempts to force episcopacy on their churches, finally
clashed with Parliament over a long ordeal with new and revolutionary ideas.
The Puritans, or "Roundheads" as they were called, finally led a
civil war against the King and his Cavaliers.
When he discerned the weaknesses of the Roundhead
army, Cromwell made himself captain of the cavalry. Cromwell had never been
trained in war, but from the very beginning he showed consummate genius as a
general. Cromwell understood that successful revolutions were always fought by
farmers so he gathered a thousand hand-picked Puritans - farmers and herdsmen -
who were used to the open fields. His regiment was nicknamed
"Ironsides" and was never beaten once, although they fought greatly
outnumbered - at times three to one.
It was an army the likes of which hadn't been seen
since ancient Israel. They would recite the Westminster Confession and march
into battle singing the Psalms of David striking terror into the heart of the
enemy. Cromwell's tactic was to strike with the cavalry through the advancing
army at the center, go straight through the lines and then circle to either the
left or the right milling the mass into a mob, creating confusion and utterly
destroying them. Cromwell amassed a body of troops and soon became
commander-in-chief. His discipline created the only body of regular troops on
either side who preached, prayed, paid fines for profanity and drunkenness, and
charged the enemy singing hymns - the strangest abnormality in an age when
every vice imaginable characterized soldiers and mercenaries.
In the meantime, Charles I invited an Irish Catholic
army to his aid, an action for which he was tried for high treason and beheaded
shortly after the war. After executing the national sovereign, the Parliament
assumed power. The success of the new democracy in England was short-lived.
Cromwell found that a democratic parliamentary system run by squires and lords
oppressed the common people and was almost as corrupt as the rulership of the
deposed evil king. As Commander-in-Chief of the army, he was able to seize
rulership and served a term as "Lord Protector."
During the fifteen years in which Cromwell ruled, he
drove pirates from the Mediterranean Sea, set English captives free, and
subdued any threat from France, Spain and Italy. Cromwell made Great Britain a respected and feared power the world over. Cromwell maintained a large
degree of tolerance for rival denominations. He stood for a national church
without bishops. The ministers might be Presbyterian, Independent or Baptist.
Dissenters were allowed to meet in gathered churches and even Roman Catholics
and Quakers were tolerated. He worked for reform of morals and the improvement
of education. He strove constantly to make England a genuinely Christian nation
and she enjoyed a brief "Golden Age" in her history.
When Charles I was beheaded, the understanding was
that he had broken covenant with the people. The view of Cromwell and the
Puritans was that when the magistrate breaks covenant, then he may legitimately
be deposed. The Puritan understanding of the covenantal nature of government
was the foundation for American colonial government. This was true of Massachusetts and Connecticut and to a lesser extent in the Southern colonies. When the
Mayflower Compact was written, the Pilgrims had a covenantal idea of the nature
of civil government. This was a foundation for later colonies established
throughout the 1600s. These covenants were influenced by what Knox had done in Scotland and what the Puritans had done in England.
RICHARD CROMWELL (1658-1659)
The eldest
surviving son of Oliver Cromwell, Richard was Lord Protector of England from September 1658 to May 1659, but failed in his efforts to lead the
Commonwealth.
Richard served in the Parliaments of 1654 and 1656 and
some government posts, but showed little of his father's ability.
Constitutional changes in 1657 allowed Cromwell to choose his successor. He
began to prepare Richard, appointing him to the council of state and the House
of Lords.
He was proclaimed Lord Protector immediately after his
father's death, on 3rd September 1658. Unfortunately, the Commonwealth had been
held together by his father and Richard was no Oliver. It was an unstable
mixture of zealous reform and a yearning for stability, Parliamentary authority
and military power.
Richard soon faced serious problems. The army were
disillusioned with a government that had grown increasingly ceremonious. They
grew more restless when Richard appointed himself commander in chief. A new
Parliament was elected in 1659 but a vacuum of power prompted the army council
to seize power. In April 1659 it forced Richard to dissolve Parliament.
The officers now recalled the Rump Parliament,
dissolved by Oliver Cromwell in 1653. It dismissed Richard as Lord Protector;
he officially abdicated in May. Yet the Rump was incapable of governing without
financial and military support and the army itself remained bitterly divided.
George Monck, one of the army's most capable officers, marched south from Scotland to protect Parliament but, on arriving in London, realised that only the
restoration of Charles II could put an end to the political chaos that now
gripped the state.
Richard, having amassed large debts during his time in
office, left for Paris in 1660 to escape his creditors, living under the name
of John Clarke. After living in Geneva, he returned to England in around 1680, where he lived quietly until his death.
CHARLES
II (1660-85)
Although those who had signed Charles I's death
warrant were punished (nine regicides were put to death, and Cromwell's body
was exhumed from Westminster Abbey and buried in a common pit), Charles pursued
a policy of political tolerance and power-sharing. In April 1660, fresh
elections had been held and a Convention met with the House of Lords. Parliament
invited Charles to return, and he arrived at Dover on 25 May.
Despite the bitterness left from the Civil Wars and
Charles I's execution, there were few detailed negotiations over the conditions
of Charles II's restoration to the throne. Under the Declaration of Breda of
May 1660, Charles had promised pardons, arrears of Army pay, confirmation of
land purchases during the Interregnum and 'liberty of tender consciences' in
religious matters, but several issues remained unresolved. However, the Militia
Act of 1661 vested control of the armed forces in the Crown, and Parliament
agreed to an annual revenue of £1,200,000 (a persistent deficit of
£400,000-500,000 remained, leading to difficulties for Charles in his
foreign policy). The bishops were restored to their seats in the House of
Lords, and the Triennial Act of 1641 was repealed - there was no mechanism for
enforcing the King's obligation to call Parliament at least once every three
years. Under the 1660 Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, only the lands of the
Crown and the Church were automatically resumed; the lands of Royalists and
other dissenters which had been confiscated and/or sold on were left for
private negotiation or litigation.
The early years of Charles's reign saw an appalling
plague which hit the country in 1665 with 70,000 dying in London alone, and the
Great Fire of London in 1666 which destroyed St Paul's amongst other buildings.
Another misfortune included the second Dutch war of 1665 (born of English and
Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry). Although the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was overrun and renamed New York before the war started, by 1666 France and Denmark had allied with the Dutch. The war was dogged by poor administration
culminating in a Dutch attack on the Thames in 1667; a peace was negotiated
later in the year.
In 1667, Charles dismissed his Lord Chancellor,
Clarendon - an adviser from Charles's days of exile (Clarendon's daughter Anne
was the first wife of Charles's brother James and was mother of Queens Mary and
Anne). As a scapegoat for the difficult religious settlement and the Dutch war,
Clarendon had failed to build a 'Court interest' in the Commons. He was
succeeded by a series of ministerial combinations, the first of which was that
of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale (whose initials
formed the nickname Cabal). Such combinations (except for Danby's dominance of
Parliament from 1673 to 1679) were largely kept in balance by Charles for the
rest of his reign.
Charles's foreign policy was a wavering balance of
alliances with France and the Dutch in turn. In 1670, Charles signed the secret
treaty of Dover under which Charles would declare himself a Catholic and
England would side with France against the Dutch - in return Charles would
receive subsidies from the King of France (thus enabling Charles some limited
room for manoeuvre with Parliament, but leaving the possibility of public
disclosure of the treaty by Louis). Practical considerations prevented such a
public conversion, but Charles issued a Declaration of Indulgence, using his
prerogative powers to suspend the penal laws against Catholics and
Nonconformists. In the face of an Anglican Parliament's opposition, Charles was
eventually forced to withdraw the Declaration in 1673.
In 1677 Charles married his niece Mary to William of
Orange partly to restore the balance after his brother's second marriage to the
Catholic Mary of Modena and to re-establish his own Protestant credentials.
This assumed a greater importance as it became clear that Charles's marriage to
Catherine of Braganza would produce no legitimate heirs (although Charles had a
number of mistresses and illegitimate children), and his Roman Catholic brother
James's position as heir apparent raised the prospect of a Catholic king.
Throughout Charles's reign, religious toleration
dominated the political scene. The 1662 Act of Uniformity had imposed the use
of the Book of Common Prayer, and insisted that clergy subscribe to Anglican
doctrine (some 1,000 clergy lost their livings). Anti-Catholicism was
widespread; the Test Act of 1673 excluded Roman Catholics from both Houses of
Parliament. Parliament's reaction to the Popish Plot of 1678 (an allegation by
Titus Oates that Jesuit priests were conspiring to murder the King, and involving
the Queen and the Lord Treasurer, Danby) was to impeach Danby and present a
Bill to exclude James (Charles's younger brother and a Roman Catholic convert)
from the succession. In 1680/81 Charles dissolved three Parliaments which had
all tried to introduce Exclusion Bills on the basis that 'we are not like to
have a good end'.
Charles sponsored the founding of the Royal Society in
1660 (still in existence today) to promote scientific research. Charles also
encouraged a rebuilding programme, particularly in the last years of his reign,
which included extensive rebuilding at Windsor Castle, a huge but uncompleted
new palace at Winchester and the Greenwich Observatory. Charles was a patron of
Christopher Wren in the design and rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral, Chelsea Hospital (a refuge for old war veterans) and other London buildings.
Charles died in 1685, becoming a Roman Catholic on his
deathbed.
JAMES II (1685-88)
Born in
1633 and named after his grandfather James I, James II grew up in exile after
the Civil War (he served in the armies of Louis XIV) and, after his brother's
restoration, commanded the Royal Navy from 1660 to 1673. James converted to
Catholicism in 1669. Despite his conversion, James II succeeded to the throne
peacefully at the age of 51. His position was a strong one - there were
standing armies of nearly 20,000 men in his kingdoms and he had a revenue of
around £2 million. Within days of his succession, James announced the
summoning of Parliament in May but he sounded a warning note: 'the best way to
engage me to meet you often is always to use me well'. A rebellion led by
Charles's illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, was easily crushed after the
battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, and savage punishments were imposed by the
infamous Lord Chief Justice, Judge Jeffreys, at the 'Bloody Assizes'.
James's reaction to the Monmouth rebellion was to plan
the increase of the standing army and the appointment of loyal and experienced
Roman Catholic officers. This, together with James's attempts to give civic
equality to Roman Catholic and Protestant dissenters, led to conflict with
Parliament, as it was seen as James showing favouritism towards Roman
Catholics. Fear of Catholicism was widespread (in 1685, Louis XIV revoked the
Edict of Nantes which gave protection to French Protestants), and the
possibility of a standing army led by Roman Catholic officers produced protest
in Parliament. As a result, James prorogued Parliament in 1685 and ruled
without it.
James attempted to promote the Roman Catholic cause by
dismissing judges and Lord Lieutenants who refused to support the withdrawal of
laws penalising religious dissidents, appointing Catholics to important
academic posts, and to senior military and political positions. Within three
years, the majority of James's subjects had been alienated.
In 1687 James issued the Declaration of Indulgence
aiming at religious toleration; seven bishops who asked James to reconsider
were charged with seditious libel, but later acquitted to popular Anglican
acclaim. When his second (Roman Catholic) wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth on
10 June 1688 to a son (James Stuart, later known as the 'Old Pretender' and
father of Charles Edward Stuart, 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'), it seemed that a
Roman Catholic dynasty would be established. William of Orange, Protestant
husband of James's elder daughter, Mary (by James's first and Protestant wife,
Anne Hyde), was therefore welcomed when he invaded on 5 November 1688. The Army and the Navy (disaffected despite James's investment in them) deserted to
William, and James fled to France.
James's attempt to regain the throne by taking a
French army to Ireland failed - he was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. James spent the rest of his life in exile in France, dying there in 1701.
WILLIAM III (1689-1702) AND MARY II (1689-94)
In 1689 Parliament declared that James had abdicated
by deserting his kingdom. William (reigned 1689-1702) and Mary (reigned
1689-94) were offered the
throne as joint monarchs. They accepted a Declaration of Rights (later a Bill),
drawn up by a Convention of Parliament, which limited the Sovereign's power,
reaffirmed Parliament's claim to control taxation and legislation, and provided
guarantees against the abuses of power which James II and the other Stuart
Kings had committed. The exclusion of James II and his heirs was extended to
exclude all Catholics from the throne, since 'it hath been found by experience
that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant kingdom to be governed by a papist
prince'. The Sovereign was required in his coronation oath to swear to maintain
the Protestant religion.
The Bill was designed to ensure Parliament could
function free from royal interference. The Sovereign was forbidden from
suspending or dispensing with laws passed by Parliament, or imposing taxes
without Parliamentary consent. The Sovereign was not allowed to interfere with
elections or freedom of speech, and proceedings in Parliament were not to be
questioned in the courts or in any body outside Parliament itself. (This was
the basis of modern parliamentary privilege.) The Sovereign was required to
summon Parliament frequently (the Triennial Act of 1694 reinforced this by
requiring the regular summoning of Parliaments). Parliament tightened control
over the King's expenditure; the financial settlement reached with William and
Mary deliberately made them dependent upon Parliament, as one Member of
Parliament said, 'when princes have not needed money they have not needed us'.
Finally the King was forbidden to maintain a standing army in time of peace
without Parliament's consent.
The Bill of Rights added further defences of
individual rights. The King was forbidden to establish his own courts or to act
as a judge himself, and the courts were forbidden to impose excessive bail or
fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. However, the Sovereign could still
summon and dissolve Parliament, appoint and dismiss Ministers, veto legislation
and declare war.
The so-called 'Glorious Revolution' has been much debated
over the degree to which it was conservative or radical in character. The
result was a permanent shift in power; although the monarchy remained of
central importance, Parliament had become a permanent feature of political
life.
The Toleration Act of 1689 gave all non-conformists
except Roman Catholics freedom of worship, thus rewarding Protestant dissenters
for their refusal to side with James II.
After 1688 there was a rapid development of party, as
parliamentary sessions lengthened and the Triennial Act ensured frequent
general elections. Although the Tories had fully supported the Revolution, it
was the Whigs (traditional critics of the monarchy) who supported William and
consolidated their position. Recognising the advisability of selecting a Ministry
from the political party with the majority in the House of Commons, William
appointed a Ministry in 1696 which was drawn from the Whigs; known as the
Junto, it was regarded with suspicion by Members of Parliament as it met
separately, but it may be regarded as the forerunner of the modern Cabinet of
Ministers.
In 1697, Parliament decided to give an annual grant of
£700,000 to the King for life, as a contribution to the expenses of civil
government, which included judges' and ambassadors' salaries, as well as the
Royal Household's expenses.
The Bill of Rights had established the succession with
the heirs of Mary II, Anne and William III in that order, but by 1700 Mary had
died childless, Anne's only surviving child (out of 17 children), the Duke of Gloucester,
had died at the age of 11 and William was dying. The succession had to be
decided.
The Act of Settlement of 1701 was designed to secure
the Protestant succession to the throne, and to strengthen the guarantees for
ensuring parliamentary system of government. According to the Act, succession
to the throne went to Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover and James I's
granddaughter, and her Protestant heirs.
The Act also laid down the conditions under which
alone the Crown could be held. No Roman Catholic, nor anyone married to a Roman
Catholic, could hold the English Crown. The Sovereign now had to swear to
maintain the Church of England (and after 1707, the Church of Scotland). The
Act of Settlement not only addressed the dynastic and religious aspects of
succession, it also further restricted the powers and prerogatives of the
Crown.
Under the Act, parliamentary consent had to be given
for the Sovereign to engage in war or leave the country, and judges were to
hold office on good conduct and not at royal pleasure - thus establishing
judicial independence. The Act of Settlement reinforced the Bill of Rights, in
that it strengthened the principle that government was undertaken by the
Sovereign and his or her constitutional advisers (i.e. his or her Ministers),
not by the Sovereign and any personal advisers whom he or she happened to
choose.
One of William's main reasons for accepting the throne
was to reinforce the struggle against Louis XIV. William's foreign policy was
dominated by the priority to contain French expansionism. England and the Dutch joined the coalition against France during the Nine Years War.
Although Louis was forced to recognise William as King under the Treaty of
Ryswick (1697), William's policy of intervention in Europe was costly in terms
of finance and his popularity. The Bank of England, established in 1694 to
raise money for the war by borrowing, did not loosen the King's financial
reliance on Parliament as the national debt depended on parliamentary
guarantees. William's Dutch advisers were resented, and in 1699 his Dutch Blue
Guards were forced to leave the country.
Never of robust health, William died as a result of
complications from a fall whilst riding at Hampton Court in 1702.
ANNE (1702-14)
Anne, born in 1665, was the second daughter of James
II and Anne Hyde. She played no part in her father's reign, but sided with her
sister and brother-in-law (Mary II and William III) during the Glorious
Revolution. She married George, Prince of Denmark, but the pair failed to produce
a surviving heir. She died at 49 years of age, after a lifelong battle with the
blood disease porphyria.
The untimely death of William III nullified, in
effect, the Settlement Act of 1701: Anne was James' daughter through his
Protestant marriage, and therefore, presented no conflict with the act. Anne
refrained from politically antagonizing Parliament, but was compelled to attend
most Cabinet meetings to keep her half-brother, James the Old Pretender, under
heel. Anne was the last sovereign to veto an act of Parliament, as well as the
final Stuart monarch. The most significant constitutional act in her reign was
the Act of Union in 1707, which created Great Britain by finally fully uniting England and Scotland (Ireland joined the Union in 1801).
The Stuart trait of relying on favorites was as
pronounced in Anne's reign as it had been in James I's reign. Anne's closest
confidant was Sarah Churchill, who exerted great influence over the king.
Sarah's husband was the Duke of Marlborough, who masterly led the English to
several victories in the War of Spanish Succession. Anne and Sarah were
virtually inseparable: no king's mistress had ever wielded the power granted to
the duchess, but Sarah became too confident in her position. She developed an
overbearing demeanor towards Anne, and berated the Queen in public. In the
meantime, Tory leaders had planted one Abigail Hill in the royal household to
capture Anne's need for sympathy and affection. As Anne increasingly turned to
Abigail, the question of succession rose again, pitting the Queen and the
Marlborough against each other in a heated debate. The relationship of Anne and
the Churchill's fell asunder. Marlborough, despite his war record, was
dismissed from public service and Sarah was shunned in favor of Abigail.
Many of the internal conflicts in English society were
simply the birth pains of the two-party system of government. The Whig and Tory
Parties, fully enfranchised by the last years of Anne's reign, fought for
control of Parliament and influence over the Queen. Anne was torn personally as
well as politically by the succession question: her Stuart upbringing compelled
her to choose as heir her half-brother, the Old Pretender and favorite of the
Tories, but she had already elected to side with Whigs when supporting Mary and
William over James II. In the end, Anne abided by the Act of Settlement, and
the Whigs paved the way for the succession of their candidate, George of
Hanover.
Anne's reign may be considered successful, but
somewhat lackluster in comparison to the rest of the Stuart line. 1066 and All
That, describes her with its usual tongue-in-cheek manner: "Finally the Orange... was succeeded by the memorable dead queen, Anne. Queen Anne was considered
rather a remarkable woman and hence was usually referred to as Great Anna, or
Annus Mirabilis. The Queen had many favourites (all women), the most memorable
of whom were Sarah Jenkins and Mrs Smashems, who were the first wig and the
first Tory... the Whigs being the first to realize that the Queen had been dead
all the time chose George I as King."
THE HANOVERIANS
The Hanoverians came to power in difficult
circumstances that looked set to undermine the stability of British society.
The first of their Kings, George I, was only 52nd in line to the throne, but
the nearest Protestant according the Act of Settlement. Two descendants of
James II, the deposed Stuart King, threatened to take the throne and were
supported by a number of 'Jacobites' throughout the realm.
The Hanoverian period for all that, was remarkably
stable, not least because of the longevity of its Kings. From 1714 through to
1837, there were only five, one of whom, George III, remains the longest
reigning King in British History. The period was also one of political stability,
and the development of constitutional monarchy. For vast tracts of the
eighteenth century politics were dominated by the great Whig families, while
the early nineteenth century saw Tory domination. Britain's first 'Prime'
Minister, Robert Walpole, dates from this period, while income tax was
introduced. Towards the end of the reign, the Great Reform Act was passed,
which amongst other things widened the electorate.
It was in this period that Britain came to acquire
much of her overseas Empire, despite the loss of the American colonies, largely
through foreign conquest in the various wars of the century. At the end of the
Hanoverian period the British empire covered a third of the globe while the
theme of longevity was set to continue, as the longest reigning monarch in
British history, Queen Victoria, prepared to take the throne.
THE
HANOVERIANS
1714 - 1837
GEORGE
I = Sophia
Dorothea, dau. of Duke of Brunswick and Celle
(1714–1727)
GEORGE II =
Caroline, dau. of Margrave of
(1727–1760) Brandenburg-Anspach
Augusta
of = Frederick Lewis,
Saxe-Gotha-Altenberg Prince of Wales
GEORGE III = Sophia Charlotte of
(1760–1820) Mecklenburg-Strelitz
GEORGE IV
WILLIAM IV Edward, = Victoria
(1820–1830)
(1830–1837) Duke of Kent of Saxe-Coburg
VICTORIA
(1837–1901)
GEORGE I (1714-27)
George I was born March 28, 1660, son of Ernest, Elector of Hanover and Sophia, granddaughter of James I. He was raised in the
royal court of Hanover, a German province, and married Sophia, Princess of
Zelle, in 1682. The marriage produced one son (the future George II) and one
daughter (Sophia Dorothea, who married her cousin, Frederick William I, King of Prussia). After ruling England for thirteen years, George I died of a stroke on a
journey to his beloved Hanover on October 11, 1727.
George, Elector of Hanover since 1698, ascended the
throne upon the death of Queen Anne, under the terms of the 1701 Act of
Settlement. His mother had recently died and he meticulously settled his
affairs in Hanover before coming to England. He realized his position and
considered the better of two evils to be the Whigs (the other alternative was
the Catholic son of James II by Mary of Modena, James Edward Stuart, the Old
Pretender). George knew that any decision was bound to offend at least half of
the British population. His character and mannerisms were strictly German; he
never troubled himself to learn the English language, and spent at least half
of his time in Hanover.
The pale little 54 year-old man arrived in Greenwich on September 29, 1714, with a full retinue of German friends, advisors and
servants (two of which, Mohamet and Mustapha, were Negroes captured during a
Turkish campaign). All were determined to profit from the venture, with George
leading the way. He also arrived with two mistresses and no wife - Sophia had
been imprisoned for adultery. The English population was unkind to the two
mistresses, labeling the tall, thin Ehrengard Melusina von Schulenberg as the
"maypole", and the short, fat Charlotte Sophia Kielmansegge as the
"elephant". Thackeray remarked, "Take what you can get was the
old monarch's maxim... The German women plundered, the German secretaries
plundered, the German cooks and attendants plundered, even Mustapha and
Mohamet... had a share in the booty."
The Jacobites, legitimist Tories, attempted to depose
George and replace him with the Old Pretender in 1715. The rebellion was a
dismal failure. The Old Pretender failed to arrive in Britain until it was over and French backing evaporated with the death of Louis XIV. After
the rebellion, England settled into a much needed time of peace, with internal
politics and foreign affairs coming to the fore.
George's ignorance of the English language and customs
actually became the cornerstone of his style of rule: leave England to it's own devices and live in Hanover as much as possible. Cabinet positions
became of the utmost importance; the king's ministers represented the executive
branch of government, while Parliament represented the legislative. George's
frequent absences required the creation of the post of Prime Minister, the
majority leader in the House of Commons who acted in the king's stead. The
first was Robert Walpole, whose political mettle was tried in 1720 with the
South Sea Company debacle. The South Sea Company was a highly speculative
venture (one of many that was currently plaguing British economics at that
time), whose investors cajoled government participation. Walpole resisted from
the beginning, and after the venture collapsed and thousands were financially
ruined, he worked feverishly to restore public credit and confidence in George's
government. His success put him in the position of dominating British politics
for the next 20 years, and the reliance on an executive Cabinet marked an
important step in the formation of a modern constitutional monarchy in England.
George avoided entering European conflicts by
establishing a complex web of continental alliances. He and his Whig ministers
were quite skillful; the realm managed to stay out of war until George II
declared war on Spain in 1739. George I and his son, George II, literally hated
each other, a fact that the Tory party used to gain political strength. George
I, on his many trips to Hanover, never placed the leadership of government in
his son's hands, preferring to rely on his ministers when he was abroad. This
disdain between father and son was a blight which became a tradition in the
House of Hanover.
Thackeray, in The Four Georges, allows both a
glimpse of George I's character, and the circumstances under which he ruled England: "Though a despot in Hanover, he was a moderate ruler in England. His aim was to leave it to itself as much as possible, and to live out of it as
much as he could. His heart was in Hanover. He was more than fifty-four years
of age when he came amongst us: we took him because we wanted him, because he
served our turn; we laughed at his uncouth German ways, and sneered at him. He
took our loyalty for what it was worth; laid hands on what money he could; kept
us assuredly from Popery and wooden shoes. I, for one, would have been on his
side in those days. Cynical, and selfish, as he was, he was better than a king
out of St. Germains [the Old Pretender] with a French King's orders in his
pocket, and a swarm of Jesuits in his train."
GEORGE II (1727-60)
George II was born November 10, 1683, the only son of George I and Sophia. His youth was spent in the Hanoverian court in Germany, and he married Caroline of Anspach in 1705. He was truly devoted to Caroline; she
bore him three sons and five daughters, and actively participated in government
affairs, before she died in 1737. Like his father, George was very much a
German prince, but at the age of 30 when George I ascended the throne, he was
young enough to absorb the English culture that escaped his father. George II
died of a stroke on October 25, 1760.
George possessed three passions: the army, music and
his wife. He was exceptionally brave and has the distinction of being the last
British sovereign to command troops in the field (at Dettingen against the
French in 1743). He inherited his father's love of opera, particularly the work
of George Frederick Handel, who had been George I's court musician in Hanover. Caroline proved to be his greatest asset. She revived traditional court life
(which had all but vanished under George I, was fiercely intelligent and an
ardent supporter of Robert Walpole. Walpole continued in the role of Prime
Minister at Caroline's behest, as George was loathe keeping his father's head
Cabinet member. The hatred George felt towards his father was reciprocated by
his son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died in 1751.
Walpole retired in
1742, after establishing the foundation of the modern constitutional monarchy:
a Cabinet responsible to a Parliament, which was, in turn, responsible to an
electorate. At that time, the system was far from truly democratic; the
electorate was essentially the voice of wealthy landowners and mercantilists.
The Whig party was firmly in control, although legitimist Tories attempted one
last Jacobite rebellion in 1745, by again trying to restore a Stuart to the
throne. Prince Charles Edward Stuart, known as the Young Pretender or Bonnie
Prince Charlie, landed in Scotland and marched as far south as Derby, causing yet another wave of Anti-Catholicism to wash over England. The Scots
retreated, and in 1746, were butchered by the Royal Army at Culloden Moor.
Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped to France and died in Rome. The Tories became
suspect due to their associations with Jacobitism, ensuring oligarchic Whig
rule for the following fifty years.
Walpole managed to
keep George out of continental conflicts for the first twelve years of the
reign, but George declared war on Spain in 1739, against Walpole's wishes. The
Spanish war extended into the 1740's as a component of the War of Austrian
Succession, in which England fought against French dominance in Europe. George shrank away from the situation quickly: he negotiated a hasty peace with France, to protect Hanover. The 1750's found England again at war with France, this time over imperial claims. Fighting was intense in Europe, but North America and India were also theatres of the war. Government faltering in response to
the French crisis brought William Pitt the Elder, later Earl of Chatham, to the
forefront of British politics.
Thackeray describes George II and Walpole as such, in The
Four Georges "... how he was a choleric little sovereign; how he shook
his fist in the face of his father's courtiers; how he kicked his coat and wig
about in his rages; and called everybody thief, liar, rascal with whom he
differed: you will read in all the history books; and how he speedily and
shrewdly reconciled himself with the bold minister, whom he had hated during
his father's life, and by whom he was served during fifteen years of his own
with admirable prudence, fidelity, and success. But for Robert Walpole, we
should have had the Pretender back again."
GEORGE
III (r. 1760-1820)
George III was born on 4 June 1738 in London, the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. He
became heir to the throne on the death of his father in 1751, succeeding his
grandfather, George II, in 1760. He was the third Hanoverian monarch and the
first one to be born in England and to use English as his first language.
George III is widely remembered for two things: losing
the American colonies and going mad. This is far from the whole truth. George's
direct responsibility for the loss of the colonies is not great. He opposed
their bid for independence to the end, but he did not develop the policies
(such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend duties of 1767 on tea, paper
and other products) which led to war in 1775-76 and which had the support of
Parliament. These policies were largely due to the financial burdens of
garrisoning and administering the vast expansion of territory brought under the
British Crown in America, the costs of a series of wars with France and Spain
in North America, and the loans given to the East India Company (then
responsible for administering India). By the 1770s, and at a time when there
was no income tax, the national debt required an annual revenue of £4
million to service it.
The declaration of American independence on 4 July 1776, the end of the war with the surrender by British forces in 1782, and the
defeat which the loss of the American colonies represented, could have
threatened the Hanoverian throne. However, George's strong defence of what he
saw as the national interest and the prospect of long war with revolutionary France made him, if anything, more popular than before.
The American war, its political aftermath and family
anxieties placed great strain on George in the 1780s. After serious bouts of
illness in 1788-89 and again in 1801, George became permanently deranged in
1810. He was mentally unfit to rule in the last decade of his reign; his eldest
son - the later George IV - acted as Prince Regent from 1811. Some medical
historians have said that George III's mental instability was caused by a
hereditary physical disorder called porphyria.
George's accession in 1760 marked a significant change
in royal finances. Since 1697, the monarch had received an annual grant of
£700,000 from Parliament as a contribution to the Civil List, i.e. civil
government costs (such as judges' and ambassadors' salaries) and the expenses of
the Royal Household. In 1760, it was decided that the whole cost of the Civil
List should be provided by Parliament in return for the surrender of the
hereditary revenues by the King for the duration of his reign. (This
arrangement still applies today, although civil government costs are now paid
by Parliament, rather than financed directly by the monarch from the Civil
List.)
The first 25 years of George's reign were politically
controversial for reasons other than the conflict with America. The King was accused by some critics, particularly Whigs (a leading political
grouping), of attempting to reassert royal authority in an unconstitutional
manner. In fact, George took a conventional view of the constitution and the
powers left to the Crown after the conflicts between Crown and Parliament in
the 17th century.
Although he was careful not to exceed his powers,
George's limited ability and lack of subtlety in dealing with the shifting
alliances within the Tory and Whig political groupings in Parliament meant that
he found it difficult to bring together ministries which could enjoy the
support of the House of Commons. His problem was solved first by the
long-lasting ministry of Lord North (1770-82) and then, from 1783, by Pitt the
Younger, whose ministry lasted until 1801.
George III was the most attractive of the Hanoverian
monarchs. He was a good family man (there were 15 children) and devoted to his
wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, for whom he bought the Queen's House
(later enlarged to become Buckingham Palace). However, his sons disappointed
him and, after his brothers made unsuitable secret marriages, the Royal
Marriages Act of 1772 was passed at George's insistence. (Under this Act, the
Sovereign must give consent to the marriage of any lineal descendant of George
II, with certain exceptions.)
Being extremely conscientious, George read all
government papers and sometimes annoyed his ministers by taking such a
prominent interest in government and policy. His political influence could be
decisive. In 1801, he forced Pitt the Younger to resign when the two men
disagreed about whether Roman Catholics should have full civil rights. George
III, because of his coronation oath to maintain the rights and privileges of
the Church of England, was against the proposed measure.
One of the most cultured of monarchs, George started a
new royal collection of books (65,000 of his books were later given to the British Museum, as the nucleus of a national library) and opened his library to scholars.
In 1768, George founded and paid the initial costs of the Royal Academy of Arts
(now famous for its exhibitions). He was the first king to study science as
part of his education (he had his own astronomical observatory), and examples
of his collection of scientific instruments can now be seen in the Science Museum.
George III also took a keen interest in agriculture,
particularly on the crown estates at Richmond and Windsor, being known as
'Farmer George'. In his last years, physical as well as mental powers deserted
him and he became blind. He died at Windsor Castle on 29 January 1820, after a reign of almost 60 years - the second longest in British history.
GEORGE IV (1820-30)
George IV was 48 when
he became Regent in 1811. He had secretly and illegally married a Roman
Catholic, Mrs Fitzherbert. In 1795 he officially married Princess Caroline of Brunswick, but the marriage was a failure and he tried unsuccessfully to divorce her after
his accession in 1820 (Caroline died in 1821). Their only child Princess
Charlotte died giving birth to a stillborn child.
An outstanding, if extravagant, collector and builder,
George IV acquired many important works of art (now in the Royal Collection),
built the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, and transformed Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. George's fondness for pageantry helped to develop the ceremonial
side of monarchy. After his father's long illness, George resumed royal visits;
he visited Hanover in 1821 (it had not been visited by its ruler since the
1750s), and Ireland and Scotland over the next couple of years.
Beset by debts, George was in a weak position in
relation to his Cabinet of ministers. His concern for royal prerogative was
sporadic; when the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool fell ill in 1827, George at
one stage suggested that ministers should choose Liverpool's successor. In
1829, George IV was forced by his ministers, much against his will and his
interpretation of his coronation oath, to agree to Catholic Emancipation. By
reducing religious discrimination, this emancipation enabled the monarchy to
play a more national role.
George's profligacy and marriage difficulties meant
that he never regained much popularity, and he spent his final years in
seclusion at Windsor, dying at the age of 67.
WILLIAM IV (1830-37)
At the age of 13,
William became a midshipman and began a career in the Royal Navy. In 1789, he
was made duke of Clarence. He retired from the Navy in 1790. Between 1791 and
1811 he lived with his mistress, the actress Mrs Jordan, and the growing family
of their children known as the Fitzclarences. William married Princess Adelaide
of Saxe-Meiningen in 1818, but their children died in infancy. The third son of
George III, William became heir apparent at the age of 62 when his older
brother died.
William's reign (reigned 1830-37) was dominated by the
Reform crisis, beginning almost immediately when Wellington's Tory government
(which William supported) lost the general election in August 1830. Pledged to
parliamentary reform, Grey's Whig government won a further election which
William had to call in 1831 and then pushed through a reform bill against the
opposition of the Tories and the House of Lords, using the threat of the
creation of 50 or more peers to do so. The failure of the Tories to form an
alternative government in 1832 meant that William had to sign the Great Reform
Bill. Control of peerages had been used as a party weapon, and the royal
prerogative had been damaged.
The Reform Bill abolished some of the worst abuses of
the electoral system (for example, representation for so called 'rotten
boroughs', which had long ceased to be of any importance, was stopped, and new
industrial towns obtained representation). The Reform Act also introduced
standardised rules for the franchise (different boroughs had previously had
varying franchise rules) and, by extending the franchise to the middle classes,
greatly increased the role of public opinion in the political process.
William understood the theory of the more limited
monarchy, once saying 'I have my view of things, and I tell them to my
ministers. If they do not adopt them, I cannot help it. I have done my duty.'
William died a month after Victoria had come of age, thus avoiding another
regency.
VICTORIA (1837-1901)
Victoria was born at Kensington Palace, London, on 24 May 1819. She was the only daughter of Edward, Duke of
Kent, fourth son of George III. Her father died shortly after her birth and she
became heir to the throne because the three uncles who were ahead of her in
succession - George IV, Frederick Duke of York, and William IV - had no
legitimate children who survived. Warmhearted and lively, Victoria had a gift
for drawing and painting; educated by a governess at home, she was a natural
diarist and kept a regular journal throughout her life. On William IV's death
in 1837, she became Queen at the age of 18.
Queen Victoria is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and - especially - empire.
At her death, it was said, Britain had a worldwide empire on which the sun
never set.
In the early part of her reign, she was influenced by
two men: her first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and her husband, Prince Albert, whom she married in 1840. Both men taught her much about how to be a ruler
in a 'constitutional monarchy' where the monarch had very few powers but could
use much influence. Albert took an active interest in the arts, science, trade
and industry; the project for which he is best remembered was the Great
Exhibition of 1851, the profits from which helped to establish the South Kensington museums complex in London.
Her marriage to Prince Albert brought nine children
between 1840 and 1857. Most of her children married into other royal families
of Europe: Edward VII (born 1841, married Alexandra, daughter of Christian IX
of Denmark); Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (born 1844,
married Marie of Russia); Arthur, Duke of Connaught (born 1850, married Louise
Margaret of Prussia); Leopold, Duke of Albany (born 1853, married Helen of
Waldeck-Pyrmont); Victoria, Princess Royal (born 1840, married Friedrich III,
German Emperor); Alice (born 1843, married Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and
by Rhine); Helena (born 1846, married Christian of Schleswig-Holstein); Louise
(born 1848, married John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll); Beatrice (born 1857,
married Henry of Battenberg). Victoria bought Osborne House (later presented to
the nation by Edward VII) on the Isle of Wight as a family home in 1845, and
Albert bought Balmoral in 1852.
Victoria was deeply attached
to her husband and she sank into depression after he died, aged 42, in 1861.
She had lost a devoted husband and her principal trusted adviser in affairs of
state. For the rest of her reign she wore black. Until the late 1860s she
rarely appeared in public; although she never neglected her official
Correspondence, and continued to give audiences to her ministers and official
visitors, she was reluctant to resume a full public life. She was persuaded to
open Parliament in person in 1866 and 1867, but she was widely criticised for
living in seclusion and quite a strong republican movement developed. (Seven
attempts were made on Victoria's life, between 1840 and 1882 - her courageous
attitude towards these attacks greatly strengthened her popularity.) With time,
the private urgings of her family and the flattering attention of Benjamin
Disraeli, Prime Minister in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880, the Queen gradually
resumed her public duties.
In foreign policy, the Queen's influence during the
middle years of her reign was generally used to support peace and
reconciliation. In 1864, Victoria pressed her ministers not to intervene in the
Prussia-Austria-Denmark war, and her letter to the German Emperor (whose son
had married her daughter) in 1875 helped to avert a second Franco-German war.
On the Eastern Question in the 1870s - the issue of Britain's policy towards
the declining Turkish Empire in Europe - Victoria (unlike Gladstone) believed
that Britain, while pressing for necessary reforms, ought to uphold Turkish
hegemony as a bulwark of stability against Russia, and maintain bi-partisanship
at a time when Britain could be involved in war.
Victoria's popularity
grew with the increasing imperial sentiment from the 1870s onwards. After the
Indian Mutiny of 1857, the government of India was transferred from the East
India Company to the Crown with the position of Governor General upgraded to
Viceroy, and in 1877 Victoria became Empress of India under the Royal Titles
Act passed by Disraeli's government.
During Victoria's long reign, direct political power
moved away from the sovereign. A series of Acts broadened the social and
economic base of the electorate. These acts included the Second Reform Act of
1867; the introduction of the secret ballot in 1872, which made it impossible
to pressurise voters by bribery or intimidation; and the Representation of the
Peoples Act of 1884 - all householders and lodgers in accommodation worth at
least £10 a year, and occupiers of land worth £10 a year, were
entitled to vote.
Despite this decline in the Sovereign's power, Victoria showed that a monarch who had a high level of prestige and who was prepared to
master the details of political life could exert an important influence. This
was demonstrated by her mediation between the Commons and the Lords, during the
acrimonious passing of the Irish Church Disestablishment Act of 1869 and the
1884 Reform Act. It was during Victoria's reign that the modern idea of the
constitutional monarch, whose role was to remain above political parties, began
to evolve. But Victoria herself was not always non-partisan and she took the
opportunity to give her opinions - sometimes very forcefully - in private.
After the Second Reform Act of 1867, and the growth of
the two-party (Liberal and Conservative) system, the Queen's room for manoeuvre
decreased. Her freedom to choose which individual should occupy the premiership
was increasingly restricted. In 1880, she tried, unsuccessfully, to stop
William Gladstone - whom she disliked as much as she admired Disraeli and whose
policies she distrusted - from becoming Prime Minister. She much preferred the
Marquess of Hartington, another statesman from the Liberal party which had just
won the general election. She did not get her way. She was a very strong supporter
of Empire, which brought her closer both to Disraeli and to the Marquess of
Salisbury, her last Prime Minister. Although conservative in some respects -
like many at the time she opposed giving women the vote - on social issues, she
tended to favour measures to improve the lot of the poor, such as the Royal
Commission on housing. She also supported many charities involved in education,
hospitals and other areas.
Victoria and her family travelled and were seen on an
unprecedented scale, thanks to transport improvements and other technical
changes such as the spread of newspapers and the invention of photography. Victoria was the first reigning monarch to use trains - she made her first train journey in
1842.
In her later years, she almost became the symbol of
the British Empire. Both the Golden (1887) and the Diamond (1897) Jubilees,
held to celebrate the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the queen's accession,
were marked with great displays and public ceremonies. On both occasions,
Colonial Conferences attended by the Prime Ministers of the self-governing
colonies were held.
Despite her advanced age, Victoria continued her
duties to the end - including an official visit to Dublin in 1900. The Boer War
in South Africa overshadowed the end of her reign. As in the Crimean War nearly
half a century earlier, Victoria reviewed her troops and visited hospitals; she
remained undaunted by British reverses during the campaign: 'We are not
interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.'
Victoria died at
Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, on 22 January 1901 after a reign which lasted almost 64 years, the longest in British history. She was buried at Windsor beside Prince Albert, in the Frogmore Royal Mausoleum, which she had built for
their final resting place. Above the Mausoleum door are inscribed Victoria's words: 'farewell best beloved, here at last I shall rest with thee, with thee in
Christ I shall rise again'.
SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA
The name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha came to the British Royal
Family in 1840 with the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert, son
of Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha. Queen Victoria herself
remained a member of the House of Hanover.
The only British monarch of the House of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was King Edward VII, who reigned for nine years at the
beginning of the modern age in the early years of the 20th century. King George
V replaced the German-sounding title with that of Windsor during the First
World War. The name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha survived in other European monarchies,
including the current Belgian Royal Family and the former monarchies of Portugal and Bulgaria.
SAXE-COBURG
AND GOTHA
1837 - 1917
THE WINDSORS
1917 – PRESENT
DAY
VICTORIA = m. Prince Albert of
Saxe-Coburg & Gotha
(1837-1910) (Prince
Consort)
EDWARD VII = m. Princess Alexandra, dau.
of CHRISTIAN IX, King of
(1910 – 1936) Denmark
DUKE OF WINDSOR
GEORGE VI
= m. Lady
Elizabeth
EDWARD
VIII 1936-1952 Bowes-Lyon,
dau. of Earl of
(abdicated
1936) Strathmore
and Kinghorne
(Queen Elizabeth
The
Queen Mother)
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
(1952 – present day)
EDWARD VII (1901-10)
Edward VII, born November 9, 1841, was the eldest son of Queen Victoria. He took the family name of his father, Prince Consort
Albert, hence the change in lineage, although he was still Hanoverian on his
mother's side. He married Princess Alexandra of Denmark in 1863, who bore him
three sons and three daughters. Edward died on May 6, 1910, after a series of heart attacks.
Victoria, true to the
Hanoverian name, saw the worst in Edward. She and Albert imposed a strict
regime upon Edward, who proved resistant and resentful throughout his youth.
His marriage at age twenty-two to Alexandra afforded him some relief from his
mother's domination, but even after Albert's death in 1863, Victoria
consistently denied her son any official governmental role. Edward rebelled by
completely indulging himself in women, food, drink, gambling, sport and travel.
Alexandra turned a blind eye to his extramarital activities, which continued
well into his sixties and found him implicated in several divorce cases.
Edward succeeded the throne upon Victoria's death;
despite his risqué reputation, Edward threw himself into his role of
king with vitality. His extensive European travels gave him a solid foundation
as an ambassador in foreign relations. Quite a few of the royal houses of Europe were his relatives, allowing him to actively assist in foreign policy negotiations.
He also maintained an active social life, and his penchant for flamboyant
accouterments set trends among the fashionable. Victoria's fears proved wrong:
Edward's forays into foreign policy had direct bearing on the alliances between
Great Britain and both France and Russia, and aside from his sexual
indiscretions, his manner and style endeared him to the English populace.
Social legislation was the focus of Parliament during
Edward's reign. The 1902 Education Act provided subsidized secondary education,
and the Liberal government passed a series of acts benefiting children after
1906; old age pensions were established in 1908. The 1909 Labour Exchanges Act
laid the groundwork for national health insurance, which led to a
constitutional crisis over the means of budgeting such social legislation. The
budget set forth by David Lloyd-George proposed major tax increases on wealthy
landowners and was defeated in Parliament. Prime Minister Asquith appealed to
Edward to create several new peerages to swing the vote, but Edward steadfastly
refused. Edward died amidst the budgetary crisis at age sixty-eight, which was
resolved the following year by the Liberal government's passage of the act.
Despite Edward's colorful personal life and Victoria's
perceptions of him as profligate, Edward ruled peacefully (aside from the Boer
War of 1899-1902) and successfully during his short reign, which is remarkable
considering the shifts in European power that occurred in the first decade of
the twentieth century.
THE HOUSE OF WINDSOR
The House of Windsor came into being in 1917, when the
name was adopted as the British Royal Family's official name by a proclamation
of King George V, replacing the historic name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It remains
the family name of the current Royal Family.
During the twentieth century, kings and queens of the United Kingdom have fulfilled the varied duties of constitutional monarchy. One of their
most important roles was national figureheads lifting public morale during the
devastating world wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45.
The period saw the modernization of the monarchy in
tandem with the many social changes which have taken place over the past 80
years. One such modernization has been the use of mass communication
technologies to make the Royal Family accessible to a broader public the world
over. George V adopted the new relatively new medium of radio to broadcast
across the Empire at Christmas; the Coronation ceremony was broadcast on
television for the first time in 1953, at The Queen's insistence; and the World
Wide Web has been used for the past five years to provide a global audience
with information about the Royal Family. During this period British monarchs
have also played a vital part in promoting international relations, retaining
ties with former colonies in their role as Head of the Commonwealth.
GEORGE V (1910-36)
George V was born June 3, 1865, the second son of Edward VII and Alexandra. His early education was somewhat insignificant as
compared to that of the heir apparent, his older brother Albert. George chose
the career of professional naval officer and served competently until Albert
died in 1892, upon which George assumed the role of the heir apparent. He
married Mary of Teck (affectionately called May) in 1893, who bore him four
sons and one daughter. He died the year after his silver jubilee after a series
of debilitating attacks of bronchitis, on January 20, 1936.
George ascended the throne in the midst of a
constitutional crisis: the budget controversy of 1910. Tories in the House of
Lords were at odds with Liberals in the Commons pushing for social reforms.
When George agreed to create enough Liberal peerages to pass the measure the
Lords capitulated and gave up the power of absolute veto, resolving the problem
officially with passage of the Parliament Bill in 1911. The first World War
broke out in 1914, during which George and May made several visits to the
front; on one such visit, George's horse rolled on top of him, breaking his
pelvis - George remained in pain for the rest of his life from the injury. The
worldwide depression of 1929-1931 deeply affected England, prompting the king
to persuade the heads of the three political parties (Labour, Conservative and
Liberal) to unite into a coalition government. By the end of the 1920's, George
and the Windsors were but one of few royal families who retained their status
in Europe.
The relationship between England and the rest of the
Empire underwent several changes. An independent Irish Parliament was
established in 1918 after the Sinn Fein uprising in 1916, and the Government of
Ireland Act (1920) divided Ireland along religious lines. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa demanded the right of self-governance after
the war, resulting in the creation of the British Commonwealth of Nations by
the Statute of Westminster in 1931. India was accorded some degree of
self-determination with the Government of India Act in 1935.
The nature of the monarchy evolved through the
influence of George. In contrast to his grandmother and father - Victoria's ambition to exert political influence in the tradition of Elizabeth I and Edward
VII's aspirations to manipulate the destiny of nations - George's royal
perspective was considerably more humble. He strove to embody those qualities,
which the nation saw as their greatest strengths: diligence, dignity and duty.
The monarchy transformed from an institution of constitutional legality to the
bulwark of traditional values and customs (particularly those concerning the
family). Robert Lacey describes George as such: ". . . as his official
biographer felt compelled to admit, King George V was distinguished 'by no
exercise of social gifts, by no personal magnetism, by no intellectual powers.
He was neither a wit nor a brilliant raconteur, neither well-read nor
well-educated, and he made no great contribution to enlightened social
converse. He lacked intellectual curiosity and only late in life acquired some
measure of artistic taste.' He was, in other words, exactly like most of his
subjects. He discovered a new job for modern kings and queens to do - representation."
EDWARD VIII ( JANUARY-DECEMBER 1936)
As Prince of Wales,
Edward VIII (reigned January-December 1936) had successfully carried out a
number of regional visits (including areas hit by economic depression) and
other official engagements. These visits and his official tours overseas,
together with his good war record and genuine care for the underprivileged, had
made him popular.
The first monarch to be a qualified pilot, Edward created The King's Flight
(now known as 32 (The Royal) Squadron) in 1936 to provide air transport for the
Royal family's official duties.
In 1930, the Prince, who had already had a number of
affairs, had met and fallen in love with a married American woman, Mrs Wallis
Simpson. Concern about Edward's private life grew in the Cabinet, opposition
parties and the Dominions, when Mrs Simpson obtained a divorce in 1936 and it
was clear that Edward was determined to marry her.
Eventually Edward realised he had to choose between
the Crown and Mrs Simpson who, as a twice-divorced woman, would not have been
acceptable as Queen. On 10 December 1936, Edward VIII executed an Instrument of
Abdication which was given legal effect the following day, when Edward gave
Royal Assent to His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act, by which Edward VIII
and any children he might have were excluded from succession to the throne. In
1937, Edward was created Duke of Windsor and married Wallis Simpson.
During the Second World War, the Duke of Windsor
escaped from Paris, where he was living at the time of the fall of France, to Lisbon in 1940. The Duke of Windsor was then appointed Governor of the Bahamas, a position he held until 1945. He lived abroad until the end of his life, dying in
1972 in Paris (he is buried at Windsor). Edward was never crowned; his reign
lasted 325 days. His brother Albert became King, using his last name George.
GEORGE VI (1936-52)
George VI, born December 14, 1895, was the second son of George V and Mary of Teck. He was an unassuming, shy boy who greatly
admired his brother Edward, Prince of Wales. From childhood to the age of
thirty, George suffered with a bad stammer in his speech, which exacerbated his
shyness; Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist, was instrumental in
helping George overcome the speech defect. George married Lady Elizabeth
Bowes-Lyon in 1923, who bore him two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. He died
from cancer on February 6, 1952.
Due to the controversy surrounding the abdication of
Edward VIII, popular opinion of the throne was at its lowest point since the
latter half of Victoria's reign. The abdication, however, was soon overshadowed
by continental developments, as Europe inched closer to yet another World War.
After several years of pursuing "appeasement" policies with Germany, Great Britain (and France) declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. George, following in his father's footsteps, visited troops, munitions factories, supply
docks and bomb-damaged areas to support the war effort. As the Nazi's bombed London, the royal family remained at Buckingham Palace; George went so far as to practice
firing his revolver, vowing that he would defend Buckingham to the death.
Fortunately, such defense was never necessary. The actions of the King and
Queen during the war years greatly added to the prestige of the monarchy.
George predicted the hardships following the end of
the war as early as 1941. From 1945-50, Great Britain underwent marked
transitions. The Bank of England, as well as most facets of industry,
transportation, energy production and health care, were brought to some degree
of public ownership. The birth pangs of the Welfare State and the change from
Empire to multiracial Commonwealth troubled the high-strung king. The political
turmoil and economic hardships of the post-war years left the king physically
and emotionally drained by the time of his death.
In the context of royal history, George VI was one of
only five monarchs who succeeded the throne in the lifetime of his predecessor;
Henry IV, Edward IV, Richard III, and William III were the other four. George,
upon his ascension, wrote to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin concerning the
state of the monarchy: "I am new to the job but I hope that time will be
allowed to me to make amends for what has happened." His brother Edward
continued to advise George on matters of the day, but such advice was a
hindrance, as it was contradictory to policies pursued by George's ministers.
The "slim, quiet man with tired eyes" (as described by Logue) had a
troubled reign, but he did much to leave the monarchy in better condition than
he found it.
ELIZABETH II (1952-PRESENT)
Elizabeth II, born April 21, 1926, is the eldest daughter of George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. She married
Philip Mountbatten, a distant cousin, in 1947; the pair have four children:
Charles, Prince of Wales, Anne, Andrew and Edward. She has reigned for
forty-six years, and appears capable of remaining on the throne for quite some
time.
Monarchy, as an institution in Europe, all but
disappeared during the two World Wars: a scant ten monarchs remain today, seven
of which have familial ties to England. Elizabeth is, by far, the best known of
these, and is the most widely traveled Head of State in the world. Her
ascension was accompanied by constitutional innovation; each independent,
self-governing country proclaimed Elizabeth, Queen of their individual state.
She approves of the transformation from Empire to Commonwealth, describing the
change as a "beneficial and civilized metamorphosis." The
indivisibility of the crown was formally abandoned by statute in 1953, and
"Head of the Commonwealth" was added to the long list of royal titles
which she possesses.
Elizabeth's travels
have won the adulation of her subjects; she is greeted with honest enthusiasm
and warm regard with each visit abroad. She has been the master link in a chain
of unity forged among the various countries within the Commonwealth. Hence, the
monarchy, as well as the Empire, has evolved - what once was the image of
absolute power is now a symbol of fraternity.
Elizabeth has managed
to maintain a division between her public and private life. She is the first
monarch to send her children to boarding schools in order to remove them from
the ever-probing media. She has a strong sense of duty and diligence and
dispatches her queenly business with great candor, efficiency and dignity. Her
knowledge of current situations and trends is uncannily up to date, often to
the embarrassment of her Prime Ministers. Harold Wilson, upon his retirement,
remarked, "I shall certainly advise my successor to do his homework before
his audience." Churchill, who had served four monarchs, was impressed and
delighted by her knowledge and wit. She possesses a sense of humor rarely
exhibited in public where a dignified presence is her goal.
Elizabeth, like her
father before her, raised the character of the monarchy through her actions.
Unfortunately, the actions of her children have tarnished the royal name. The
much publicized divorces of Charles from Diana and Andrew from Sarah Ferguson
have been followed by further indiscretions by the princes, causing a
heavily-taxed populace to rethink the necessity of a monarchy. Perhaps Elizabeth will not reign as long as Victoria, but her exceptionally long reign has
provided a bright spot in the life of her country.
THE MONARCHY TODAY
THE QUEEN'S ROLE
The Queen is the United Kingdom's Head of State. As
well as carrying out significant constitutional functions, The Queen also acts
as a focus for national unity, presiding at ceremonial occasions, visiting
local communities and representing Britain around the world. The Queen is also
Head of the Commonwealth. During her reign she has visited all the Commonwealth
countries, going on 'walkabouts' to gain direct contact with people from all
walks of life throughout the world.
Behind and in front of the cameras, The Queen's work
goes on. No two days in The Queen's working life are ever the same.
QUEEN'S ROLE IN THE MODERN STATE
Until the end of the 17th century, British monarchs
were executive monarchs - that is, they had the right to make and pass
legislation. Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, the monarch has
become a constitutional monarch, which means that he or she is bound by rules
and conventions and remains politically impartial.
On almost all matters he or she acts on the advice of
ministers. While acting constitutionally, the Sovereign retains an important
political role as Head of State, formally appointing prime ministers, approving
certain legislation and bestowing honours.
The Queen also has important roles to play in other
organisations, including the Armed Forces and the Church of England.
QUEEN'S ROLE IN THE MODERN STATE
Until the end of the 17th century, British monarchs
were executive monarchs - that is, they had the right to make and pass
legislation. Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, the monarch has
become a constitutional monarch, which means that he or she is bound by rules
and conventions and remains politically impartial.
On almost all matters he or she acts on the advice of
ministers. While acting constitutionally, the Sovereign retains an important
political role as Head of State, formally appointing prime ministers, approving
certain legislation and bestowing honours.
The
Queen also has important roles to play in other organisations, including the
Armed Forces and the Church of England.
QUEEN AND COMMONWEALTH
The
Queen is not only Queen of the United Kingdom, but Head of the Commonwealth, a
voluntary association of 54 independent countries.
Most of these countries have progressed from British
rule to independent self-government, and the Commonwealth now serves to foster
international co-operation and trade links between people all over the world.
The Queen is also Queen
of a number of Commonwealth realms, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
ROYAL VISITS
Visits to all kinds of places throughout the United Kingdom, Commonwealth and overseas are an important part of the work of The Queen
and members of the Royal family. They allow members of the Royal family to meet
people from all walks of life and backgrounds, to celebrate local and national
achievements and to strengthen friendships between different countries. Many of
the visits are connected to charities and other organisations with which
members of the Royal family are associated. In other cases, royal visits help
to celebrate historic occasions in the life of a region or nation. All visits
are carefully planned to ensure that as many people as possible have the
opportunity to see or meet members of the Royal family.
THE QUEEN'S WORKING DAY
The Queen has many different duties to perform every
day. Some are familiar public duties, such as Investitures, ceremonies,
receptions or visits within the United Kingdom or abroad. Away from the
cameras, however, The Queen's work goes on. It includes reading letters from
the public, official papers and briefing notes; audiences with political
ministers or ambassadors; and meetings with her Private Secretaries to discuss
her future diary plans. No two days are ever the same and The Queen must remain
prepared throughout.
CEREMONIES AND PAGEANTRY
The colourful ceremonies and traditions associated
with the British Monarchy are rich in history and meaning and fascinating to
watch. In some, The Queen takes part in person. In others - such as Guard Mounting
or Swan Upping - the ceremony is performed in The Queen's name. Many of the
ceremonies take place on a regular basis - every year or even every day - which
means that British people and visitors to London and other parts of the United Kingdom may have an opportunity to see some of these interesting events take place.
THE QUEEN'S CEREMONIAL DUTIES
The Queen has many ceremonial roles. Some - such as
the State Opening of Parliament, Audiences with new ambassadors and the
presentation of decorations at Investitures - relate to The Queen's role as
Head of State.
Others - such as the presentation of Maundy money
and the hosting of garden parties - are historical ceremonies in which kings
and queens have taken part for decades or even centuries.
ROYAL PAGEANTRY AND TRADITIONS
In addition to the events in which The Queen takes
part, there are many other ceremonies and traditions associated with the
British Monarchy. Some of these have military associations, involving troops
from the present Armed Forces as well as the members of the historical royal
bodyguard, the Yeomen of the Guard. Others are traditions which are less well
known than the colourful pageantry but are interesting in their own right. Some
- such as the customary broadcasts by the Sovereign on Christmas Day and
Commonwealth Day - are fairly recent in origin, but have rapidly become
familiar and popular traditions.
ROYAL SUCCESSION
When a sovereign dies, or abdicates, a successor is
immediately decided according to rules which were laid down at the end of the
seventeenth century. The coronation of a new sovereign is a ceremony of great
pageantry and celebration that has remained essentially the same for over a
thousand years. As well as explaining accession, succession and coronation,
this section looks at the titles which have been held by different members of
the Royal Family throughout history.
THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD
Divided into five departments, the Royal Household
assists The Queen in carrying out her official duties. Members of the Royal
Household carry out the work and roles which were performed by courtiers
historically. There are 645 full-time employees, employed across a wide range
of professions. People employed within the Royal Household are recruited from
the general workforce on merit, in terms of qualifications, experience and
aptitude. Details of the latest vacancies are listed in the Recruitment pages
of this section.
The Royal Household includes The Queen's Household,
plus the Households of other members of the Royal Family who undertake public
engagements. The latter comprise members of their private offices and
other people who assist with their public duties.
ROYAL HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENTS
Royal Household's functions are divided across five
departments, under the overall authority of the Lord Chamberlain, the senior
member of The Queen's Household. These departments developed over centuries and
originated in the functions of the Royal Court. As a result, the departments
and many job titles have ancient names - the jobs themselves, however, are
thoroughly modern!
Most of the departments are based in Buckingham Palace, although there are also offices in St. James's Palace, Windsor Castle and the Royal Mews. Members of the Royal Household also often travel with The Queen on
overseas visits and during The Queen's stays at Balmoral Castle and Sandringham, since The Queen's work continues even when she is away from London.
In addition to the full-time members of the Royal
Household, there are other part-time members of The Queen's Household. These
include the Great Officers of State who take part in important Royal
ceremonies, as well as Ladies-in-waiting, who are appointed personally by The
Queen and female members of the Royal Family.
RECRUITMENT
People are employed within the Royal Household from a
wide range of sectors and professions, including catering, housekeeping,
accountancy, secretarial and administrative fields, public relations, human
resources management, art curatorship and strategic planning disciplines. The
special nature of the Royal Household means that unique career opportunities
are available.
Employment in the Royal Household offers excellent
career opportunities for those who wish to take a new direction. Positions in
the Royal Household receive good remuneration and benefits. For domestic
positions, there are often enhanced by accommodation. The Royal Household is
also committed to training and development, including NVQ and vocational
training, general management and skills-based training across a range of
disciplines - from carriage driving to an in-house diploma for footmen
which is widely recognised in its specialised field as a valued vocational
qualification.
Jobs at Buckingham Palace and in other Royal
residences are usually advertised in national, regional or specialist media in
the usual way. Details of the latest vacancies are listed in the Recruitment
pages of this section and applications can be made by downloading the standard
application form. All positions are also advertised internally to encourage
career development and to offer opportunities for promotion to existing
employees.
A number of vacancies occur on a regular basis,
including positions as housemaids, footmen and secretaries. In addition, nearly
200 Wardens are employed each year for Buckingham Palace's Summer Opening
programme. Speculative enquiries are welcome for these posts throughout the
year.
Recruitment is in all cases on merit, in terms of
qualifications, experience and aptitude. The Royal Household is committed to
Equal Opportunities.
ANNIVERSARIES
Since 1917, the Sovereign has
sent congratulatory messages to those celebrating their 100th and 105th
birthday and every year thereafter, and to those celebrating their Diamond
Wedding (60th), 65th, 70th wedding anniversaries and every year thereafter. For
many people, receiving a message from The Queen on these anniversaries is a very
special moment.
For data privacy reasons, there is no automatic alert
from government records for wedding anniversaries. The Department for Work
and Pensions informs the Anniversaries Office of birthdays for recipients of UK
State pensions. However, to ensure that a message is sent for birthdays and
wedding anniversaries alike, an application needs to be made by a relative
or friend in advance of the special day.
The Queen's congratulatory messages consist of a card
containing a personalised message with a facsimile signature. The card comes in
a special envelope, which is delivered through the normal postal channels.
More information about applying for a message and
interesting facts about the tradition are contained in this section.
ROYAL FINANCES
This section provides the latest information on Head
of State expenditure, together with information about Royal financial
arrangements.
It includes information about the four sources of
funding of The Queen (or officials of the Royal Household acting on her
behalf). The Civil List meets official expenditure relating to The Queen's
duties as Head of State and Head of the Commonwealth. Grants-in-Aid from
Parliament provide upkeep of the Royal Palaces and for Royal travel. The Privy
Purse is traditional income for the Sovereign's public and private use. Her
Majesty's personal income meets entirely private expenditure.
The Queen pays tax on her personal income and capital
gains. The Civil List and the Grants-in-Aid are not taxed because they cover
official expenditure. The Privy Purse is fully taxable, subject to a deduction
for official expenditure.
These pages also contain information about the
financial arrangements of other members of the Royal Family, together with
information on the Royal Philatelic Collection.
HEAD OF STATE EXPENDITURE 2000-01
Head of State expenditure is
the official expenditure relating to The Queen's duties as Head of State and
Head of the Commonwealth. Head of State expenditure is met from public funds in
exchange for the surrender by The Queen of the revenue from the Crown Estate.
Head of State expenditure for 2001-02, at £35.3
million, is 1.0% higher than in the previous year (a decrease of 1.3% in real
terms). The £350,000 increase is mainly attributable to fire precautions
work at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, offset by the fact that costs transferred
from other funding sources to the Civil List with effect from 1st April 2001
are only included in 2001 Civil List expenditure for nine months. They will be
included for a full year in 2002 and subsequently. Costs have been transferred
to the Civil List from other funding sources in order to utilise the Civil List
reserve brought forward at 1st January 2001. Head of State expenditure has
reduced from £84.6 million (expressed in current pounds) in 1991-92, a
reduction of 58%.
SOURCES OF FUNDING
The four sources of funding of The Queen, or
officials of the Royal Household acting on Her Majesty's behalf, are: the Civil
List, the Grants-in-Aid for upkeep of Royal Palaces and for Royal travel, the
Privy Purse and The Queen's personal wealth and income.
FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES
The Prince of Wales does not receive any money from
the State. Instead, he receives the annual net surplus of the Duchy of Cornwall
and uses it to meet the costs of all aspects of his public and private
commitments, and those of Prince William and Prince Harry.
The Duchy's name is derived from the Earldom of
Cornwall, which Edward III elevated to a duchy in 1337. The Duchy's founding
charter included the gift of estates spread throughout England. It also stated that the Duchy should be in the stewardship of the Heir Apparent,
to provide the Heir with an income independent of the Sovereign or the State.
After 660 years, the Duchy's land holdings have become
more diversified, but the Duchy is still predominantly an agricultural estate.
Today, it consists of around 57,000 hectares, mostly in the South of England.
It is run on a commercial basis, as prescribed by the parliamentary legislation
which governs its activities.
Prince Charles became the 24th Duke of Cornwall on The
Queen's accession in 1952. He is in effect a trustee, and is not entitled to
the proceeds of disposals of assets. The Prince must pass on the estate intact,
so that it continues to provide an income from its assets for future Dukes of
Cornwall.
The Duchy's net surplus for the year to 31 March 2002 was £7,827,000. As a Crown body, the Duchy is tax exempt, but The
Prince of Wales voluntarily pays income tax (currently at 40%) on his taxable
income from it.
FINANCES OF THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL
FAMILY
Under the Civil List Acts, The Duke of Edinburgh
receives an annual parliamentary allowance to enable him to carry out public
duties. Since 1993, The Queen has repaid to the Treasury the annual parliamentary
allowances received by other members of the Royal family.
The annual amounts payable to members of the Royal
family (which are set every ten years) were reset at their 1990 levels for the
next ten years, until December 2010. Apart from an increase of £45,000 on
the occasion of The Earl of Wessex's marriage, these amounts remain as follows:
Parliamentary annuity (not repaid by The Queen)
HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
|
£359,000
|
Parliamentary annuities (repaid by The Queen)
HRH The Duke of York
|
£249,000
|
HRH The Earl of Wessex
|
£141,000
|
HRH The Princess Royal
|
£228,000
|
HRH Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester
|
£87,000
|
TRH The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester
TRH The Duke and Duchess of Kent HRH Princess Alexandra, Hon. Lady Ogilvy
|
*£636,000
|
* Of the £636,000, £175,000 is provided by
The Queen to The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, £236,000 to The Duke and
Duchess of Kent and £225,000 to Princess Alexandra.
As with the Civil List itself, most of these sums are
spent on staff who support public engagements and correspondence.
TAXATION
The Queen has always been subject to Value Added Tax
and other indirect taxes and she has paid local rates (Council Tax) on a
voluntary basis. In 1992, however, The Queen offered to pay income tax and
capital gains tax on a voluntary basis. As from 1993, her personal income has
been taxable as for any taxpayer and the Privy Purse is fully taxable, subject
to a deduction for official expenditure. The Civil List and the Grants-in-Aid
are not remuneration for The Queen and are thus disregarded for tax.
Although The Queen's estate will be subject to
Inheritance Tax, bequests from Sovereign to Sovereign are exempt. This is
because constitutional impartiality requires an appropriate degree of financial
independence for the Sovereign and because the Sovereign is unable to generate
significant new wealth through earnings or business activities. Also, the
Sovereign cannot retire and so cannot mitigate Inheritance Tax by passing on
assets at an early stage to his or her successor.
As a Crown body, the Duchy of Cornwall is tax
exempt, but since 1969 The Prince of Wales has made voluntary contributions to
the Exchequer. As from 1993, The Prince's income from the Duchy has been fully
subject to tax on a voluntary basis. He has always paid tax, including income
tax, in all other respects.
ROYAL ASSETS
The Queen does not 'own' the Royal Palaces, art
treasures from the Royal Collection, jewellery heirlooms and the Crown Jewels,
all of which are held by Her Majesty as Sovereign and not as an individual.
They must be passed on to The Queen's successor in due course. The Queen and
some members of the Royal Family past and present have made private collections
- such as the stamp collection begun by George V. This is separate to the Royal
Collection, although exhibitions and loans of stamps are sometimes made.
SYMBOLS
Many of the most familiar objects and events in
national life incorporate Royal symbols or represent the Monarchy in some way.
Flags, coats of arms, the crowns and treasures used at coronations and some
ceremonies, stamps, coins and the singing of the national anthem have strong
associations with the Monarchy and play a significant part in our daily
existence. Other objects - such as the Great Seal of the Realm - may be less
familiar to the general public but still have a powerful symbolic role.
NATIONAL ANTHEM
'God Save The King' was a patriotic song first
publicly performed in London in 1745, which came to be referred to as the
National Anthem from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The words and
tune are anonymous, and may date back to the seventeenth century.
In September 1745 the 'Young Pretender' to the British
Throne, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, defeated the army of King George II at
Prestonpans, near Edinburgh. In a fit of patriotic fervour after news of
Prestonpans had reached London, the leader of the band at the Theatre Royal,
Drury Lane, arranged 'God Save The King' for performance after a play. It was a
tremendous success and was repeated nightly thereafter. This practice soon spread
to other theatres, and the custom of greeting the Monarch with the song as he
or she entered a place of public entertainment was thus established.
There
is no authorised version of the National Anthem as the words are a matter of
tradition. Additional verses have been added down the years, but these are
rarely used. The words used are those sung in 1745, substituting 'Queen' for
'King' where appropriate. On official occasions, only the first verse is
usually sung, as follows:
God save our gracious Queen!
Long live our noble Queen!
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen.
An additional verse is occasionally sung:
Thy choicest gifts in store
On her be pleased to pour,
Long may she reign.
May she defend our laws,
And ever give us cause,
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the Queen.
The British tune has been used in other countries - as
European visitors to Britain in the eighteenth century noticed the advantage of
a country possessing such a recognised musical symbol - including Germany, Russia, Switzerland and America (where use of the tune continued after
independence). Some 140 composers, including Beethoven, Haydn and Brahms, have
used the tune in their compositions.
ROYAL WARRANTS
Royal Warrants are granted to people or companies
who have regularly supplied goods or services for a minimum of five consecutive
years to The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother or
The Prince of Wales. They are advised by the Lord Chamberlain who is head of
the Royal Household and chairman of the Royal Household Tradesmen's Warrants
Committee. Each of these four members of the Royal family can grant only one
warrant to any individual business. However, a business may hold warrants from
more than one member of the Royal family and a handful of companies holds all
four.
The warrants are a mark of recognition that tradesmen
are regular suppliers of goods and services to the Royal households. Strict
regulations govern the warrant, which allows the grantee or his company to use
the legend 'By Appointment' and display the Royal Arms on his products, such as
stationery, advertisements and other printed material, in his or her premises
and on delivery vehicles.
A Royal Warrant is initially granted for five years,
after which time it comes up for review by the Royal Household Tradesmen's
Warrants Committee. Warrants may not be renewed if the quality or supply for
the product or service is insufficient, as far as the relevant Royal Household
is concerned. A Warrant may, however, be cancelled at any time and is
automatically reviewed if the grantee dies or leaves the business, or if the
firm goes bankrupt or is sold. There are rules to ensure that high standards
are maintained.
Since the Middle Ages, tradesmen who have acted as
suppliers of goods and services to the Sovereign have received formal
recognition. In the beginning, this patronage took the form of royal charters
given collectively to various guilds in trades and crafts which later became
known as livery companies. Over the centuries, the relationship between the
Crown and individual tradesmen was formalised by the issue of royal warrants.
In the reign of Henry VIII, Thomas Hewytt was
appointed to 'Serve the Court with Swannes and Cranes and all kinds of
Wildfoule'. A hard-working Anne Harris was appointed as the 'King's
Laundresse'. Elizabeth I's household book listed, among other things, the
Yeomen Purveyors of 'Veales, Beeves & Muttons; Sea & Freshwater Fish'.
In 1684 goods and services to the Palace included a Haberdasher of Hats, a
Watchmaker in Reversion, an Operator for the Teeth and a Goffe-Club Maker.
According to the Royal Kalendar of 1789, a Pin Maker, a Mole Taker, a Card
Maker and a Rat Catcher are among other tradesmen appointed to the court. A
notable omission was the Bug Taker - at that time one of the busiest
functionaries at court but perhaps not one to be recorded in a Royal Kalendar.
Records also show that in 1776 Mr Savage Bear was 'Purveyor of Greens Fruits
and Garden Things', and that in 1820 Mr William Giblet was supplying meat to
the table of George IV.
Warrant holders today represent a large cross-section
of British trade and industry (there is a small number of foreign names),
ranging from dry cleaners to fishmongers, and from agricultural machinery to
computer software. A number of firms have a record of Royal Warrants reaching
back over more than 100 years. Warrant-holding firms do not provide their goods
or services free to the Royal households, and all transactions are conducted on
a strictly commercial basis. There are currently approximately 800 Royal
Warrant holders, holding over 1,100 Royal Warrants between them (some have more
than one Royal Warrant).
On 25 May 1840, a gathering of 'Her Majesty's
Tradesmen' held a celebration in honour of Queen Victoria's birthday. They
later decided to make this an annual event and formed themselves for the
purpose into an association which eventually became known as the Royal Warrant
Holders Association.
The Association acts both in a supervisory role to
ensure that the standards of quality and reliability in their goods and
services are upheld, and as a channel of communication for its members in their
dealings with the various departments of the Royal Household. The Association
ensures that the Royal Warrant is not used by those not entitled and is
correctly applied by those who are.
BANK NOTES AND COINAGE
There are close ties - past and present - between
the Monarchy and the monetary system. They can be seen, for example, in the
title of the 'Royal Mint' and the representation of the monarch on all
circulating British coinage.
The first coins were struck in the British Isles 2000
years ago using designs copied from Greek coins. Following the Roman invasion
of Britain in 43 AD, the Roman coinage system was introduced. After the decline
of Roman power in Britain from the fifth century AD, the silver penny
eventually emerged as the dominant coin circulating in England but no standardized system was yet in place.
In the eighth century, as strong kings emerged with
power over more than one region, they began to centralize the currency. Offa
introduced a new coinage in the form of the silver penny, which for centuries
was to be the basis of the English currency. Alfred introduced further changes
by authorising mints in the burhs he had founded. By 800 AD coins regularly
bore the names of the kings for whom they were struck. A natural development
was the representation of their own images on their coins. Coinage played a
part in spreading the fame of kings - the more often coins passed through men's
hands, and the further afield they were taken by plunder or trade, the more
famous their royal sponsors became. Athelstan (d. 939) is the first English
king to be shown on his coins wearing a crown or circlet. For many people, the
king's image on coins was the only likeness of the monarch which they were likely
to see in their lifetimes.
By the end of the tenth century the English monarchy
had the most sophisticated coinage system in western Europe. The system allowed
kings to exploit the wealth of a much enlarged kingdom and to raise the very
large sums of money which they had to use as bribes to limit the effect of the
Vikings' invasions at the end of the tenth century.
For five centuries in England, until 1280, silver
pennies were the only royal coins in circulation. Gradually a range of
denominations began to emerge, and by the mid fourteenth century a regular
coinage of gold was introduced. The gold sovereign came into existence in 1489
under King Henry VII. Throughout this period, counterfeiting coinage was
regarded as a grave crime against the state amounting to high treason and was
punishable by death under an English statute of 1350. The crime was considered
to be an interference with the administration of government and the
representation of the monarch. Until the nineteenth century the Royal Mint was based
at the Tower of London, and for centuries was therefore under the direct
control of the monarch.
The English monarchy was the first monarchy in the British Isles to introduce a coinage for practical and propaganda purposes. Only one early
Welsh king, Hywel Dda, minted a coin, though it may not have been produced in Wales itself. The first Scottish king to issue a coinage was David I (d. 1153). Until the
reign of Alexander III (1249-1286) Scottish coinage was only issued sparingly.
During the reign of Alexander III coins began to be minted in much larger
quantities, a result of increasing trade with Europe and the importation of
foreign silver.
After the death of Alexander III in 1289, Scotland fell into a long period of internal strife and war with England. A nominal coinage
was issued under John Balliol c.1296 and then in reign of Robert the Bruce
(1306-1329), but the first substantial issue of coinage did not come until the
reign of David II (1329-1371). The accession by James VI to the English throne
in 1603 saw the fixing of value of the Scottish coinage to a ratio of 1 / 12
with English coinage. After the Act of Union in 1707 unique Scottish coinage
came to an end. The last Scottish minted coins were the sterling issues based
on the English denominations that were issued until 1709 with the "E"
mintmark for Edinburgh. Some British coinages have featured Scottish devices,
the Royal Arms of Scotland or the thistle emblem during the 20th century, but
these are a part of the coinage of the United Kingdom, not unique to Scotland.
In the United Kingdom a streamlining of coinage
production took place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Until the
Restoration of Charles II, coins were struck by hand. In 1816, there was a
major change in the British coinage, powered by the Industrial Revolution. The
Royal Mint moved from The Tower of London to new premises on nearby Tower Hill,
and acquired powerful new steam powered coining presses. Further changes took
place in the 1960s, when the Mint moved to modern premises at Llantrisant, near
Cardiff.
After over a thousand years and many changes in
production techniques, the monarch continues to be depicted on the obverse of
modern UK coinage. Certain traditions are observed in this representation. From
the time of Charles II onwards a tradition developed of successive monarchs
being represented on the coinage facing in the opposite direction to their
immediate predecessor. There was an exception to this in the brief reign of
Edward VIII, who liked portraits of himself facing to the left, even though he
should have faced to the right according to tradition. The designs for proposed
coins in the Mint collection show Edward VIII facing to the left. The tradition
has been restored since the reign of George VI.
During The Queen's reign there have been four
representations of Her Majesty on circulating coinage. The original coin
portrait of Her Majesty was by Mary Gillick and was adopted at the beginning of
the reign in 1952. The following effigy was by Arnold Machin OBE, RA, approved
by the Queen in 1964. That portrait, which features the same tiara as the
latest effigy, was used on all the decimal coins from 1968. The next effigy was
by Raphael Maklouf FRSA and was adopted in 1985. The latest portrait was
introduced in 1998 and is the work of Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS, FSNAD. In keeping
with tradition, the new portrait continues to show the Queen in profile facing
to the right. Her Majesty is wearing the tiara which she was given as a wedding
present by her grandmother Queen Mary.
Images of the monarch on bank notes are a much more
recent invention. Although bank notes began to be issued from the late
seventeenth century, they did not come to predominate over coins until the
nineteenth century. Only since 1960 has the British Sovereign been featured on
English bank notes, giving The Queen a unique distinction above her
predecessors.
STAMPS
There is a close relationship between the British
Monarchy and the postal system of the United Kingdom. Present-day postal
services have their origins in royal methods of sending documents in previous
centuries. Nowadays, the image of The Queen on postage stamps preserves the
connection with the Monarchy.
For centuries letters on affairs of State to and from
the Sovereign's Court, and despatches in time of war, were carried by
Messengers of the Court and couriers employed for particular occasions. Henry
VIII's Master of the Posts set up post-stages along the major roads of the kingdom
where Royal Couriers, riding post-haste, could change horses. In Elizabeth I's
day, those carrying the royal mail were to 'blow their horn as oft as they met
company, or four times every mile'. Letters of particular urgency - for
example, reprieves for condemned prisoners - bore inscriptions such as 'Haste,
haste - post haste - haste for life for life hast' and the sign of the gallows.
During the reign of James I (1603-25) all four posts of the kingdom still
centred on the Court: The Courte to Barwicke (the post to Scotland); The Courte to Beaumoris (to Ireland); The Courte to Dover (to Europe) and The
Courte to Plymouth (the Royal Dockyard).
Charles I opened his posts to public use, as a
means of raising money. Although public use of the royal posts increased, the
running of the mail continued to centre round the post requirements of the
Sovereign's Court. Until the 1780's the Mails did not leave London until the
Court letters had been received at the General Post Office, and as late as 1807
Court letters coming into London were, unlike ordinary letters, delivered the
moment the mail arrived. The postal system rapidly spread during Victoria's reign with the introduction of the Uniform Penny Postage in 1840, and the
Queen's letters bore postage stamps like everyone else's. Royal Messengers
continued to carry certain letters by hand. The increase in the Court's mail
led to special postal facilities being provided in 1897 in the form of a Court
Post Office - an arrangement which still exists today under the management of
the Court Postmaster.
Symbols of the royal origins of the UK's postal system remain: a miniature silhouette of the Monarch's head is depicted on all
stamps; the personal cyphers of The Queen and her predecessors (going back to Victoria) appear on many letterboxes dating from their respective reigns throughout the
country; and the postal delivery service is known as the Royal Mail.
COATS OF ARMS
The function of the Royal Coat of Arms is to
identify the person who is Head of State. In respect of the United Kingdom, the royal arms are borne only by the Sovereign. They are used in many ways
in connection with the administration and government of the country, for
instance on coins, in churches and on public buildings. They are familiar to
most people as they appear on the products and goods of Royal Warrant holders.
The Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom have evolved over many years and reflect the history of the Monarchy and of
the country. In the design the shield shows the various royal emblems of
different parts of the United Kingdom: the three lions of England in the first and fourth quarters, the lion of Scotland in the second and the harp
of Ireland in the third. It is surrounded by a garter bearing the motto Honi soit qui mal y pense ('Evil to him who evil thinks'), which symbolises the
Order of the Garter, an ancient order of knighthood of which the Queen is
Sovereign. The shield is supported by the English lion and Scottish unicorn and
is surmounted by the Royal crown. Below it appears the motto of the Sovereign, Dieu et mon droit ('God and my right'). The plant badges of the United Kingdom - rose, thistle and shamrock - are often displayed beneath the shield.
Separate Scottish and English quarterings of the Royal
Arms originate from the Union of the Crown in 1603. The Scottish version of the
Royal Coat of Arms shows the lion of Scotland in the first and fourth quarters,
with that of England being in the second. The harp of Ireland is in the third quarter. The mottoes read In defence and No one will attack me with
impunity. From the times of the Stuart kings, the Scottish quarterings have
been used for official purposes in Scotland (for example, on official buildings
and official publications).
The special position of Wales as a Principality was
recognised by the creation of the Prince of Wales long before the incorporation
of the quarterings for Scotland and Ireland in the Royal Arms. The arms of the
Prince of Wales show the arms of the ancient Principality in the centre as well
as these quarterings.
Coats of Arms of members of the Royal Family are
broadly similar to The Queen's with small differences to identify them.
GREAT SEAL
The Great Seal of the Realm is the chief seal of the
Crown, used to show the monarch's approval of important state documents. In
today's constitutional monarchy, the Sovereign acts on the advice of the
Government of the day, but the seal remains an important symbol of the
Sovereign's role as Head of State.
The practice of using this seal began in the reign of
Edward the Confessor in the 11th century, when a double-sided metal matrix with
an image of the Sovereign was used to make an impression in wax for attachment
by ribbon or cord to royal documents. The seal meant that the monarch did not
need to sign every official document in person; authorisation could be carried
out instead by an appointed officer. In centuries when few people could read or
write, the seal provided a pictorial expression of royal approval which all
could understand. The uniqueness of the official seal - only one matrix was in
existence at any one time - also meant it was difficult to forge or tamper with
official documents.
The Great Seal matrix has changed many times throughout
the centuries. A new matrix is engraved at the beginning of each reign on the
order of the Sovereign; it is traditional that on the death of the Sovereign
the old seal is used until the new Sovereign orders otherwise. For many
monarchs, a single seal has sufficed. In the case of some long-reigning
monarchs, such as Queen Victoria, the original seal simply wore out and a
series of replacements was required.
The Queen has had two Great Seals during her reign.
The first was designed by Gilbert Ledward and came into service in 1953.
Through long usage and the heat involved in the sealing process, the matrix
lost definition. From summer 2001 a new Great Seal, designed by sculptor James
Butler and produced by the Royal Mint, has been in use. At a meeting of the
Privy Council on 18 July 2001 The Queen handed the new seal matrix over to the
Lord High Chancellor, currently Lord Irvine of Lairg, who is the traditional
keeper of the Great Seal.
The Great Seal matrix will be used to create seals for
a range of documents requiring royal approval, including letters patent, royal
proclamations, commissions, some writs (such as writs for the election of
Members of Parliament), and the documents which give power to sign and ratify
treaties. During the year 2000-01, more than 100 documents passed under the
Great Seal. Separate seals exist for Scotland - the Great Seal of Scotland -
and for Northern Ireland.
The process of sealing takes place nowadays at the
House of Lords in the office of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. A system of
'colour coding' is used for the seal impression, depending on the type of
document to which it is being affixed. Dark green seals are affixed to letters
patent which elevate individuals to the peerage; blue seals are used for
documents relating to the close members of the Royal Family; and scarlet red is
used for documents appointing a bishop and for most other patents.
FLAGS
A number of different types of flag are associated
with The Queen and the Royal Family. The Union Flag (or Union Jack) originated
as a Royal flag, although it is now also flown by many people and organisations
elsewhere in the United Kingdom by long established custom. The Royal Standard
is the flag flown when The Queen is in residence in one of the Royal Palaces,
on The Queen's car on official journeys and on aircraft (when on the ground),
and represents the Sovereign and the United Kingdom. The Queen's personal flag,
adopted in 1960, is personal to her alone and can be flown by no one other than
The Queen. Members of the Royal Family have their own personal variants on the
Royal Standard. The Prince of Wales has additional Standards which he uses in Wales and Scotland.
CROWNS AND JEWELS
The crowns and treasures associated with the
British Monarchy are powerful symbols of monarchy for the British people and,
as such, their value represents more than gold and precious stones. Today the
crowns and treasures associated with English kings and queens since 1660 and earlier
are used for the Coronation of Monarchs of the United Kingdom. The crowns and
regalia used by Scottish monarchs (the Honours of Scotland) and Princes of
Wales (the Honours of the Principality of Wales) continue to have symbolic
meaning in Scotland and Wales. All three collections of treasures can be viewed
today in their different locations - the Tower of London, Edinburgh Castle and the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.
TRANSPORT
The Queen's State and private motor cars are housed
in the Royal Mews. For official duties - providing transport for State and
other visitors as well as The Queen herself - there are nine State limousines,
consisting of one Bentley, five Rolls-Royces and three Daimlers. They are
painted in Royal maroon livery and the Bentley and Rolls-Royces uniquely do not
have registration number plates. Other vehicles include a number of Vauxhall
Sintra 'people carriers'.
The most recent State car, which is used for most of
The Queen's engagements, is a State Bentley presented to The Queen to mark her
Golden Jubilee in 2002. The one-off model, conceived by a Bentley-led
consortium of British motor industry manufacturers and suppliers, is the first
Bentley to be used for State occasions. It was designed with input from The
Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh and Her Majesty's Head Chauffeur.
In technical terms, the car has a monocoque
construction, enabling greater use to be made of the vehicle's interior
space. This means the transmission tunnel now runs underneath the floor,
without encroaching on the cabin and has enabled the stylists to work with a
lowered roofline whilst preserving the required interior height. The rear
doors have been redesigned enabling The Queen to stand up straight before
stepping down to the ground. The rear seats are upholstered in Hield Lambswool
Sateen cloth whilst all remaining upholstery is in light grey Connolly
hide. Carpets are pale blue in the rear and dark blue in the front.
A Rolls-Royce Phantom VI was presented to The
Queen in 1978 for her Silver Jubilee by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and
Traders. The oldest car in the fleet is the Phantom IV, built in 1950, 5.76
litre with a straight eight engine and a Mulliner body. There is also a 1987
Phantom VI and two identical Phantom V models built in the early 1960s. The
1978 Phantom VI and the two Phantom V models have a removable exterior roof
covering, which exposes an inner lining of perspex, giving a clear view of
passengers.
All the cars have fittings for the shield bearing the
Royal Coat of Arms and the Royal Standard. The Queen has her own mascot for use
on official cars. Designed for her by the artist Edward Seago in the form of St
George on a horse poised victorious over a slain dragon, it is made of silver
and can be transferred from car to car as necessary. The Duke of Edinburgh's
mascot, a heraldic lion wearing a crown, is adapted from his arms.
For her private use The Queen drives a Daimler Jaguar
saloon or a Vauxhall estate (like every other qualified driver, The Queen holds
a driving licence). The Duke of Edinburgh has a Range Rover and, for short
journeys round London, uses a Metrocab. The private cars are painted Edinburgh green.
A number of Royal Mews vehicles have now been
converted to run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) - a more environmentally
friendly fuel than petrol or diesel. Converted vehicles include one of the
Rolls-Royce Phantom IVs, a Daimler and The Duke of Edinburgh's Metrocab.
CARS
The Queen's State and private motor cars are housed
in the Royal Mews. For official duties - providing transport for State and
other visitors as well as The Queen herself - there are nine State limousines,
consisting of one Bentley, five Rolls-Royces and three Daimlers. They are
painted in Royal maroon livery and the Bentley and Rolls-Royces uniquely do not
have registration number plates. Other vehicles include a number of Vauxhall
Sintra 'people carriers'.
The most recent State car, which is used for most of
The Queen's engagements, is a State Bentley presented to The Queen to mark her
Golden Jubilee in 2002. The one-off model, conceived by a Bentley-led
consortium of British motor industry manufacturers and suppliers, is the first
Bentley to be used for State occasions. It was designed with input from The
Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh and Her Majesty's Head Chauffeur.
In technical terms, the car has a monocoque
construction, enabling greater use to be made of the vehicle's interior
space. This means the transmission tunnel now runs underneath the floor,
without encroaching on the cabin and has enabled the stylists to work with a
lowered roofline whilst preserving the required interior height. The rear
doors have been redesigned enabling The Queen to stand up straight before
stepping down to the ground. The rear seats are upholstered in Hield Lambswool
Sateen cloth whilst all remaining upholstery is in light grey Connolly
hide. Carpets are pale blue in the rear and dark blue in the front.
A Rolls-Royce Phantom VI was presented to The
Queen in 1978 for her Silver Jubilee by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and
Traders. The oldest car in the fleet is the Phantom IV, built in 1950, 5.76
litre with a straight eight engine and a Mulliner body. There is also a 1987
Phantom VI and two identical Phantom V models built in the early 1960s. The
1978 Phantom VI and the two Phantom V models have a removable exterior roof
covering, which exposes an inner lining of perspex, giving a clear view of
passengers.
All the cars have fittings for the shield bearing the
Royal Coat of Arms and the Royal Standard. The Queen has her own mascot for use
on official cars. Designed for her by the artist Edward Seago in the form of St
George on a horse poised victorious over a slain dragon, it is made of silver
and can be transferred from car to car as necessary. The Duke of Edinburgh's
mascot, a heraldic lion wearing a crown, is adapted from his arms.
For her private use The Queen drives a Daimler Jaguar
saloon or a Vauxhall estate (like every other qualified driver, The Queen holds
a driving licence). The Duke of Edinburgh has a Range Rover and, for short
journeys round London, uses a Metrocab. The private cars are painted Edinburgh green.
A number of Royal Mews vehicles have now been
converted to run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) - a more environmentally
friendly fuel than petrol or diesel. Converted vehicles include one of the
Rolls-Royce Phantom IVs, a Daimler and The Duke of Edinburgh's Metrocab.
CARRIAGES
Housed in the Royal Mews is
the collection of historic carriages and coaches, most of which are still in
use to convey members of the Royal family in State ceremonial processions or on
other royal occasions.
The oldest coach is the Gold State Coach, first used
by George III when he opened Parliament in 1762 and used for every coronation
since George IV's in 1821. As its name implies, it is gilded all over and the
exterior is decorated with painted panels. It weighs four tons and requires
eight horses to pull it.
The coach now used by The Queen at the State Opening
of Parliament is known as the Irish State Coach because the original was built
in 1851 by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, who was also a coachbuilder. Although
extensively damaged by fire in 1911, the existing coach was completely restored
in 1989 by the Royal Mews carriage restorers, who stripped the coach to the
bare wood and applied twenty coats of paint, including gilding and varnishing.
The exterior is blue and black with gilt decoration and the interior is covered
in blue damask. It is normally driven from the box seat using four horses.
Other coaches include the Scottish State Coach (built
in 1830 and used for Scottish and English processions), Queen Alexandra's State
Coach (used to convey the Imperial State Crown to Parliament for the State
Opening), the 1902 State Landau, the Australian State Coach (presented to The
Queen in 1988 by the Australian people to mark Australia's bicentenary), the
Glass Coach (built in 1881 and used for royal weddings) and the State and
Semi-State Landaus (used in State processions).
In addition there are two barouches, broughams (which
every day carry messengers on their official rounds in London), Queen
Victoria's Ivory-Mounted Phaeton (used by The Queen since 1987 for her Birthday
Parade) as well as a number of other carriages. In all, there are over 100
coaches and carriages in the Royal Collection.
All the carriages and coaches are maintained by
craftsmen in the Royal Mews department and some of the coaches and carriages
can be viewed on days when the Royal Mews is open to the public.
THE ROYAL TRAIN
Modern Royal Train vehicles came into operation in
1977 with the introduction of four new saloons to mark The Queen's Silver
Jubilee. This continued a service which originated on 13 June, 1842, when the engine Phlegethon, pulling the royal saloon and six other carriages,
transported Queen Victoria from Slough to Paddington. The journey took 25
minutes.
It is perhaps somewhat misleading to talk of 'the
Royal Train' because the modern train consists of carriages drawn from a total
of eight purpose-built saloons, pulled by one of the two Royal Class 47 diesel
locomotives, Prince William or Prince Henry. The exact number and combination
of carriages forming a Royal Train is determined by factors such as which
member of the Royal family is travelling and the time and duration of the
journey. When not pulling the Royal Train, the two locomotives are used for
general duties.
The Royal Train enables members of the Royal family to
travel overnight, at times when the weather is too bad to fly, and to work and
hold meetings during lengthy journeys. It has modern office and communications
facilities. Journeys on the train are always organised so as not to interfere
with scheduled services. (Where appropriate, The Queen and other members of the
Royal family use scheduled services for their official journeys.)
The carriages are a distinctive maroon with red and
black coach lining and a grey roof. The carriages available include the royal
compartments, sleeping, dining and support cars. The Queen's Saloon has a
bedroom, bathroom and a sitting room with an entrance which opens onto the
platform. The Duke of Edinburgh's Saloon has a similar layout plus a kitchen.
Fitted out at the former British Rail's Wolverton Works in Buckinghamshire,
Scottish landscapes by Roy Penny and Victorian prints of earlier rail journeys
hang in both saloons.
A link with the earliest days of railways is displayed
in the Duke of Edinburgh's Saloon: a piece of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's
original broad gauge rail, presented on the 150th anniversary of the Great
Western Railway. (Brunel accompanied Queen Victoria on her inaugural 1842
journey.)
The current Queen's and Duke's Saloons came into
service in 1977, when they were extensively used during the Silver Jubilee
royal tours. They were not, however, new. They began life in 1972 as prototypes
for the standard Inter-City Mark III passenger carriage and were subsequently
fitted out for their royal role at the Wolverton Works. All work on the Royal
Train is normally done at Wolverton.
Railtrack PLC manages the Royal Train and owns the
rolling stock. Day-to-day operations are conducted by another privatised
company, English, Welsh and Scottish Railways. The cost of maintaining and
using the train is met by the Royal Household from the Grant-in-Aid which it
receives from Parliament each year for air and rail travel. In 2000-01 the
total cost of the Royal Train was £596,000; the train made 17 journeys.
A number of former Royal Train carriages are now on
display at the National Railway Museum in York.
ROYAL AIR TRAVEL
The history of Royal flying dates back more than 80
years to 1917, when The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) became the
first member of the Royal family to fly, in France during the First World War.
The Prince went on to become a skilful pilot. From 1930 onwards members of the
Royal family made increasing use of aircraft, largely operating from Hendon in
north London. In 1936, on becoming King Edward VIII, the former Prince of Wales
was the first British Monarch to fly.
Since then many members of the Royal family have
learnt to fly. The Duke of York trained as a Royal Navy helicopter pilot and
flew in operations during the 1982 Falklands Conflict - the first member of the
Royal family to see active service since the Second World War. In an
unblemished flying career spanning more than 40 years The Duke of Edinburgh has
flown more different aircraft types than most pilots. The Prince of Wales, too,
has accumulated many hours flying both fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft.
Royal flying was formalised on 21 July 1936 with the creation of The King's Flight at Hendon. The new flight operated a single
twin-engine Dragon Rapide, G-ADDD, formerly the king's private aircraft. The
first Captain of the King's Flight was Wing Commander E.H. Fielden (who later
became an Air Vice-Marshal). The Dragon Rapide was replaced in May 1937 by an
Airspeed Envoy III, G-AEXX, the first aircraft purchased specifically for the
Flight. The Second World War saw The King's Flight temporarily disbanded, although
members of the Royal family continued to fly using military aircraft.
In 1946 The King's Flight was reformed, in greater
strength, at RAF Benson with four Vickers Vikings. The following year all were
heavily used during the Royal Tour of South Africa.
After The Queen's accession The King's Flight was
renamed The Queen's Flight. The first helicopter - a Westland Dragonfly - was
acquired in September 1954 and was quickly championed by The Duke of Edinburgh
(who qualified as a helicopter pilot the following year). It was replaced in
1958 by two Westland Whirlwinds. In 1964 Hawker Siddeley Andovers were
introduced for fixed wing flying and saw more than 25 years of service before
being superceded, in the Flight's 50th anniversary year, by the current British
Aerospace 146. In June 1969 the Whirlwinds were replaced by two Westland Wessex. These served for nearly 30 years, together making more than 10,000
flights and each flying the equivalent of 20 times around the world, before
being replaced on 1 April 1998 by a single Sikorsky S-76.
In 1995, The Queen's Flight was amalgamated with No.
32 Squadron, which was renamed No 32 (The Royal) Squadron. At the same time the
squadron moved from RAF Benson to its current location at RAF Northolt.
Nowadays, official flying for members of the Royal
family is provided by BAe 146 and Hawker S125 jet aircraft of No. 32 (The
Royal) Squadron, based at RAF Northolt just north west of London, and the
Sikorsky S-76 helicopter operated by the Royal Household from Blackbushe
Aerodrome in Hampshire. In 2000-01, 32 Squadron had two four-engined BAe 146s
(each of which carries 19 to 23 passengers) and five twin-engined HS 125s (each
of which carries seven passengers). The Royal Travel Office based at RAF
Northolt co-ordinates use of the different types of aircraft by members of the
Royal family, ensuring that their use is both appropriate and cost-effective.
In 2000-01, the BAe 146 were used for Royal flying
over 142 flying hours, the HS125 for 149 flying hours and the Sikorsky for 459
flying hours. No. 32 (The Royal) Squadron is primarily a Royal Air Force
communications flying squadron. In fact, Royal flying accounts for less than
20% of the combined tasking of both the BAe 146 and the HS125, which are more
commonly used by senior military officers and Government ministers.
The cost of official royal travel by air is met by the
Royal Travel Grant-in-aid, the annual funding provided by the Department of
Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLGR). In 2000-01, the cost of
official royal travel by 32 Squadron was £1,793,000.
Aircraft of No. 32 (The Royal) Squadron have a
distinctive red, blue and white livery; the Royal Household S-76 is finished in
the red and blue colours of the Brigade of Guards (as were aircraft in the
early days of Royal flying).
Today, the BAe 146 and HS 125 of No 32 (The Royal)
Squadron and the Royal Household's S-76 are used for official duties by The
Queen and, at her discretion, other members of the Royal family, continuing a
tradition begun with a single aircraft more than 60 years ago.
THE ROYAL FAMILY
MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY
In her role as Head of State The Queen is supported
by members of the Royal Family, who carry out a wide range of public and
official duties. The biographies in this section contain information about
various members of the Royal Family, including early life and education,
professional careers, official Royal work, involvement with charities and other
organisations, personal interests and more
HM THE QUEEN
The Queen
was born in London on 21 April 1926, the first child of The Duke and Duchess of
York, subsequently King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Five weeks later she was
christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary in the chapel at Buckingham Palace.
The Princess's early years were spent at 145
Piccadilly, the London house taken by her parents shortly after her birth; at
White Lodge in Richmond Park; and at the country homes of her grandparents,
King George V and Queen Mary, and the Earl and Countess of Strathmore. When she
was six years old, her parents took over Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park as their own country home.
HRH THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth
and Baron Greenwich, was born Prince of Greece and Denmark in Corfu on 10 June
1921; the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece. His paternal family is of Danish
descent - Prince Andrew was the grandson of King Christian IX of Denmark. His mother was Princess Alice of Battenberg, the eldest child of Prince Louis of
Battenberg and sister of Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Prince Louis became a
naturalised British subject in 1868, joined the Royal Navy and rose to become
an Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord in 1914. During the First World War
he changed the family name to Mountbatten and was created Marquess of Milford
Haven. Prince Philip adopted the family name of Mountbatten when he became a
naturalised British subject and renounced his Royal title in 1947.
Prince Louis married one of Queen Victoria's
granddaughters. Thus, The Queen and Prince Philip both have Queen Victoria as a great-great-grandmother. They are also related through his father's side. His
paternal grandfather, King George I of Greece, was Queen Alexandra's brother.
HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES AND FAMILY
The Prince
of Wales, eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of
Edinburgh, is heir apparent to the throne.
The Prince was born at Buckingham Palace on 14 November 1948, and was christened Charles Philip Arthur George.
When, on the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1952, he
became heir apparent, Prince Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall
under a charter of King Edward III dating back to 1337, which gave that title
to the Sovereign's eldest son. He also became, in the Scottish Peerage, Duke of
Rothesay, Earl of Carrick and Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and
Great Steward of Scotland.
The Prince was created Prince of Wales and Earl of
Chester in 1958. In 1968, The Prince of Wales was installed as a Knight of the
Garter. The Duke of Rothesay (as he is known in Scotland) was appointed a
Knight of the Thistle in 1977. In June 2002 The Prince of Wales was appointed
to the Order of Merit.
HRH THE DUKE OF YORK
The Duke of York was born on 19 February 1960 at Buckingham Palace. He is the second son and the third child of The Queen and The
Duke of Edinburgh. He was the first child to be born to a reigning
monarch for 103 years. Named Andrew Albert Christian Edward he was known
as Prince Andrew until his marriage, when he was created The Duke of York, Earl
of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh.
TRH THE EARL AND COUNTESS OF WESSEX
The Earl of Wessex is the third son and youngest child
of The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh. He was born on 10 March 1964 and christened Edward Antony Richard Louis at Buckingham Palace. He was known as
Prince Edward until his marriage, when he was created The Earl of Wessex and
Viscount Severn; at the same time it was announced that His Royal Highness will
eventually succeed to the title of The Duke of Edinburgh.
In March 1989, The Queen appointed Prince Edward a
Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.
HRH PRINCESS ROYAL
The Princess Royal, the second child and only
daughter of The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh, was born at Clarence House, London, on 15 August 1950, when her mother was Princess Elizabeth, heir presumptive to
the throne. She was baptised Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise at Buckingham Palace on 21 October 1950.
She received the title Princess Royal from The Queen
in June 1987; she was previously known as Princess Anne. Her Royal Highness is
the seventh holder of the title.
In 1994 The Queen appointed The Princess a Lady of the
Most Noble Order of the Garter. In 2000, to mark her 50th birthday, The
Princess Royal was appointed to the Order of the Thistle, in recognition of her
work for charities.
HRH PRINCESS ALICE
Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester is the widow
of the late Duke of Gloucester, third son of George V.
Lady Alice Christabel Montagu Douglas Scott was born
on Christmas Day, 1901 at Montagu House, London. She was the third daughter of
the seventh Duke of Buccleuch, who had been a fellow midshipman of the future
king George V.
Lady Alice was educated at home until the age of 12.
She then went to school at West Malvern, spending a year in Paris before
returning home to be presented at Court in 1920. Lady Alice has greatly enjoyed
outdoor pursuits, including skiing, and has been an accomplished
watercolourist. She also travelled widely, living for many months in Kenya and also spending time in India on a visit to her brother.
TRH THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
Born
in 1944, The Duke of Gloucester is the second son of the late Duke of
Gloucester and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester. He is a grandson of
George V and a first cousin to The Queen. He succeeded his father as Duke of
Gloucester in June 1974.
In July 1972 Prince Richard (as he was then known)
married Birgitte Eva van Deurs from Odense, Denmark at St Andrew's Church,
Barnwell, Northamptonshire. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester have three
children: (Alexander) Earl of Ulster, born in 1974; The Lady Davina Windsor,
born in 1977; and The Lady Rose Windsor, born in 1980.
The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester both carry out a
large number of official engagements each year, individually and together. They
undertake visits in regions throughout the United Kingdom and travel abroad on
official visits and to support their varied patronages.
TRH THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF KENT
Born in
1935, HRH The Duke of Kent is the son of the late Prince George, fourth son of
King George V, and the late Princess Marina, daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece. He is cousin to both The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh. The present Duke of Kent
inherited his title following the death of his father in 1942.
In 1961 The Duke of Kent became engaged to Miss
Katharine Worsley and they married in York Minster. The couple have three
children: George, Earl of St Andrews, born in June 1962; Lady Helen Taylor,
born in April 1964 and Lord Nicholas Windsor, born on 25 July 1970.
The Duke and The Duchess of Kent undertake a large
number of official Royal engagements. Each has close associations with many
charities, professional bodies and other organisations.
TRH PRINCE AND PRINCESS MICHAEL OF KENT
Prince Michael was born on 4 July 1942 at the family home in Iver, Buckinghamshire. He was christened Michael George Charles Franklin
and one of his godfathers was President Roosevelt. He is a cousin to both The
Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh, and his older brother and sister are The Duke
of Kent and Princess Alexandra. Prince Michael's father, Prince George, was the
fourth son of George V and his mother, Princess Marina, was the daughter of
Prince Nicholas of Greece.
The Prince is a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian
Order.
HRH PRINCESS ALEXANDRA
Princess Alexandra was born on Christmas Day 1936 at
3, Belgrave Square, her family's London home. She is the second child and only
daughter of the late Duke and Duchess of Kent (her brothers are the present
Duke of Kent and Prince Michael of Kent). Much of her childhood was spent at
their country home, Coppins, in Buckinghamshire. Her father was killed in a
wartime flying accident in 1942 when she was just five years old.
MEMORIAL PLAQUE
HM QUEEN ELIZABETH THE QUEEN MOTHER
4 August 1900 - 30 March 2002
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen
Mother died peacefully in her sleep on Saturday 30 March 2002, at Royal Lodge, Windsor. Queen Elizabeth was a much-loved member of the Royal Family.
Her life, spanning over a century, was devoted to the service of her country,
the fulfilment of her Royal duties and the support of her family.
HRH THE PRINCESS MARGARET
21 AUGUST 1930 - 9 FEBRUARY 2002
Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret,
Countess of Snowdon died peacefully in her sleep on Saturday 9 February, 2002, in The King Edward VII Hospital, London.
The younger daughter of King George VI and Queen
Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and sister to The Queen, Princess Margaret was a
hardworking and much-loved member of the Royal Family.
Read more about the Princess and her funeral and
memorial services in this section.
DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES
Diana, Princess of Wales died on Sunday, 31 August 1997 following a car crash in Paris. There was widespread public mourning at the
death of this popular figure, culminating with her funeral at Westminster Abbey
on Saturday, 6 September 1997. Even after her death, however, the Princess's
work lives on in the form of commemorative charities and projects set up to
help those in need.
ART AND RESIDENCES
THE ROYAL COLLECTION
The Royal Collection, one of the finest art
collections in the world, is held in trust by The Queen as Sovereign for her
successors and the Nation. It is on public display at the principal royal
residences and is shown in a programme of special exhibitions and through loans
to institutions around the world.
ABOUT THE ROYAL COLLECTION
Shaped by the personal tastes of kings and queens over
more than 500 years, the Royal Collection includes paintings, drawings and
watercolours, furniture, ceramics, clocks, silver, sculpture, jewellery, books,
manuscripts, prints and maps, arms and armour, fans, and textiles. It is held
in trust by The Queen as Sovereign for her successors and the Nation, and is not
owned by her as a private individual. Curatorial and administrative
responsibility for the Collection is held by the Royal Collection Department,
part of the Royal Household.
The Collection has largely been formed since the
Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Some items belonging to
earlier monarchs, for example Henry VIII, also survive.
The greater part of the magnificent collection inherited
and added to by Charles I was dispersed on Cromwell's orders during the
Interregnum. The royal patrons now chiefly associated with notable additions to
the Collection are Frederick, Prince of Wales; George III; George IV; Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; and Queen Mary, Consort of George V.
The Royal Collection is on display at the principal
royal residences, all of which are open to the public. Unlike most art
collections of national importance, works of art from the Royal Collection can
be enjoyed in the historic settings for which they were originally commissioned
or acquired. Much of the Collection is still in use at the working royal
palaces.
The official residences of The Queen have a programme
of changing exhibitions to show further areas of the Collection to the public,
particularly those items that cannot be on permanent display for conservation
reasons. The Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen will be marked by the
creation of two flagship exhibition spaces at Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
Loans are made to institutions throughout the world,
as part of the commitment to make the Collection widely available and to show
works of art in new contexts. Touring exhibitions remain an important part of
the Royal Collection's work to broaden public access.
Over 3,000 objects from the Royal Collection are on
long-term loan to museums and galleries around the United Kingdom and abroad.
National institutions housing works of art from the Collection include The
British Museum, National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of London, the National Museum of Wales and the National Gallery of Scotland.
The Royal Collection is the only collection of major
national importance to receive no Government funding or public subsidy and is
administered by the Royal Collection Trust, a registered charity. The
Trust was set up by The Queen in 1993 under the chairmanship of The Prince of
Wales, following the establishment of the Royal Collection Department as a new
department of the Royal Household in 1987. Income from the public opening of Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Holyroodhouse and from associated
retail activities supports curatorial, conservation and educational work, loans
and travelling exhibitions and major capital projects. These projects include
the restoration of Windsor Castle after the fire in 1992, the rebuilding of The
Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace and the construction of an entirely new
gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
THE ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST
The Royal Collection is the only collection of
major national importance to receive no Government funding or public
subsidy. It is administered by the Royal Collection Trust, a
registered charity established by The Queen in 1993 under the chairmanship of
The Prince of Wales. The role of the Trust is to ensure that the Collection
is conserved and displayed to the highest standards and that public
understanding of and access to the Collection is increased through exhibition,
publication, education and a programme of loans.
These wide-ranging activities are funded by monies
raised through the Trust's trading arm, Royal Collection Enterprises, from the
public opening of Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Holyroodhouse and from retail sales of publications and other merchandise.
Current projects funded through the Royal Collection Trust include the major
expansion of exhibition space at Buckingham Palace and at the Palace of Holyroodhouse to mark The Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002.
The Royal Collection Trust determines how the income
generated should be used in pursuit of its stated objectives.
The Trust's primary aims are to ensure that:
-
the Collection is subject to proper custodial control;
-
the Collection is maintained and conserved to the highest possible standards;
-
as much of the Collection as possible can be seen by members of the public;
-
the Collection is presented and interpreted so as to enhance the public's
appreciation and understanding;
- appropriate acquisitions
are made when resources become available.
ROYAL COLLECTION ENTERPRISES
Royal Collection Enterprises Limited, the trading
subsidiary of the Royal Collection Trust, generates income for the presentation
and conservation of the Royal Collection, and for projects to increase public
access. It is responsible for the management and financial administration of
public admission to Windsor Castle and Frogmore House, Buckingham Palace, including the Royal Mews, and The Queen's Galleries. Royal Collection Enterprises also
promotes access to the Royal Collection through publishing, retail merchandise
and the Picture Library.
PUBLISHING
Publishing forms an important part of the Royal
Collection Trust's ongoing programme to extend knowledge and enjoyment of the
Collection's treasures. Over fifty books about the Royal Collection have
been produced in recent years, ranging from scholarly exhibition catalogues to
books for children.
In the mid-1990s the Royal Collection established
its own imprint to build a definitive series about the royal residences and the
works of art. These books are written by or in consultation with the
Royal Collection's own curators.
Royal Collection publications are available from the
Royal Collection shops at the Royal Mews, Windsor Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Summer Opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace.
All profits from the sale of Royal Collection
publications are dedicated to the Royal Collection Trust.
ROYAL RESIDENCES
The Royal Collection comprises the contents of all the
royal palaces.
These include the official residences of The Queen,
where the Collection plays an important part in the life of a working palace -
Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse (administered
by the Royal Collection Trust); the unoccupied residences - Hampton Court
Palace, Kensington Palace (State Apartments), Kew Palace, the Banqueting House,
Whitehall and the Tower of London (administered by the Historic Royal Palaces
Trust); and Osborne House (owned and administered by English Heritage).
Items from the Collection may also be seen at the
private homes of The Queen - Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle.
ROYAL COLLECTION GALLERIES
Dedicated gallery spaces allow works from the
Collection to be presented and interpreted in different contexts, outside their
historic settings, and give public access to items that cannot be on permanent
display for conservation reasons. The exhibitions in The Queen's
Galleries are accompanied by full catalogues, bringing to the public new
research on the subject by the Royal Collection's curators.
LATEST EXHIBITION NEWS
The new Queen's Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh was inaugurated by Her Majesty The Queen on 29 November 2002 and opened its doors to the public the following day, St Andrew's Day.
The inaugural exhibition is Leonardo
da Vinci: The Divine and the Grotesque (30 November 2002 - 30 March 2003), the largest exhibition devoted to Leonardo da Vinci ever held in Scotland and the first to
examine the artist's life-long obsession with the human form. All 68 works
come from the Royal Collection, which holds the world's finest group of
Leonardo's drawings.
A new exhibition also opened at Windsor Castle in the Drawings Gallery on 9 November 2002. The exhibition celebrates the centenary
of the Order of Merit with a series of original drawings of holders of the
honour, past and present. It also features manuscripts and badges from former
holders.
LOANS
Some 3,000 objects from the
Royal Collection are on long-term loan to 160 institutions across the UK and overseas. These include the Raphael Cartoons of The Acts of the Apostles at
the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Van der Goes Trinity Altarpiece at the
National Gallery of Scotland, and the Roman sculpture The Lely Venus, at The
British Museum.
Every year hundreds of objects from the Collection
are lent to special exhibitions worldwide. These loans support
international scholarship and enable material to be seen in new contexts.
Touring exhibitions of works from the Royal Library
are an important way to broaden access to items that, for conservation reasons,
cannot be on permanent display. The millennial exhibition Ten Religious Masterpieces was the year 2000's most popular art exhibition
outside London, attracting over 200,000 visitors over the period of its tour.
THE ROYAL RESIDENCES
The residences associated with today's Royal Family
are divided into the Occupied Royal Residences, which are held in trust for
future generations, and the Private Estates which have been handed down to The
Queen by earlier generations of the Royal Family.
Beautifully furnished with treasures from the Royal
Collection, most of the Royal residences are open to the public when not in
official use.
These pages contain details of the history and role
of these Residences and Estates, and provide information for visitors on opening
times and admission prices for those that are open to the public.
ABOUT THE ROYAL RESIDENCES
Throughout the centuries, Britain's kings and queens
have built or bought palaces to serve as family homes, workplaces and as
centres of government.
The residences associated with today's Royal Family
are divided into the Occupied Royal Residences, which are held in trust for
future generations, and the Private Estates which have been handed down to The
Queen by earlier generations of the Royal Family.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE
Buckingham Palace has served as the official London residence of Britain's sovereigns since 1837. It evolved from a town house that was owned from the
beginning of the eighteenth century by the Dukes of Buckingham. Today it is The
Queen's official residence. Although in use for the many official events and
receptions held by The Queen, areas of Buckingham Palace are opened to visitors
on a regular basis.
The State Rooms of the Palace are open to visitors
during the Annual Summer Opening in August and September. They are lavishly
furnished with some of the greatest treasures from the Royal Collection -
paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, Vermeer, Poussin, Canaletto and Claude;
sculpture by Canova and Chantrey; exquisite examples of Sèvres
porcelain, and some of the finest English and French furniture in the world.
Visits to Buckingham Palace can be combined with
visits to The Queen's Gallery, which reopened in May 2002.
THE QUEEN’S GALLERY, BUCKINGHAM PALACE
The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace is a permanent space dedicated to changing exhibitions of items from the Royal
Collection, the wide-ranging collection of art and treasures held in trust by
The Queen for the nation. Constructed forty years ago on the west front of Buckingham Palace out of the bomb-damaged ruins of the former private chapel, the gallery
has recently been redeveloped. It was reopened by The Queen on 21 May 2002 and is now open to the public on a daily basis.
The inaugural exhibition of the redeveloped gallery is
a spectacular celebration of the individual tastes of monarchs and other
members of the royal family who have shaped one of the world's greatest
collections of art. Mixing the famous with the unexpected, the selection of 450
outstanding works for Royal
Treasures: A Golden Jubilee Celebration has been made across the entire breadth of the Royal Collection, from
eight royal residences and over five centuries of collecting.
THE ROYAL MEWS
One of the finest working stables in existence, the
Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace provides a unique opportunity for visitors to
see the work of the Royal Household department that provides road transport for
The Queen and members of the Royal Family by both horse-drawn carriage and
motor car.
The Royal Mews has a permanent display of State
vehicles. These include the magnificent Gold State Coach used for
Coronations and those carriages used for Royal and State occasions, State
Visits, weddings and the State Opening of Parliament. A State motor vehicle is
also usually on display. For much of the year visitors to the Royal Mews can
also see the 30 or so carriage-horses which play an important role in The
Queen's official and ceremonial duties.
WINDSOR CASTLE
Windsor Castle is an official residence of The Queen and the
largest occupied castle in the world. A royal palace and fortress for
over 900 years, the Castle remains a working palace today. Visitors can walk
around the State Apartments, extensive suites of rooms at the heart of the working
palace; for part of the year visitors can also see the Semi State rooms, which are some of the most splendid interiors in the castle. They are furnished
with treasures from the Royal Collection including paintings by Holbein,
Rubens, Van Dyck and Lawrence, fine tapestries and porcelain, sculpture and
armour.
Within the Castle complex there are many additional
attractions. In the Drawings Gallery regular exhibitions of treasures from the
Royal Library are mounted. Another popular feature is the Queen Mary's Dolls'
House, a miniature mansion built to perfection. The fourteenth-century St. George's Chapel is the burial place of ten sovereigns, home of the Order of the
Garter, and setting for many royal weddings. Nearby on the Windsor Estate is
Frogmore House, an attractive country residence with strong associations to
three queens - Queen Charlotte, Queen Victoria and Queen Mary.
In celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty
The Queen, a new landscape garden has been created by the designer and Chelsea
Gold Medallist Tom Stuart-Smith. The garden, the first to be made at the
Castle since the 1820s, transforms the visitor entrance and provides a setting
for band concerts throughout the year. The informal design takes its
inspiration from Windsor's historic parkland landscape and the picturesque
character of the Castle, introduced by the architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville for
George IV in the 1820s.
FROGMORE
Frogmore House lies in the tranquil setting of the
private Home Park of Windsor Castle. A country residence of various monarchs
since the seventeenth century, the house is especially linked to Queen Victoria. The house and attractive gardens were one of Queen Victoria's favourite retreats.
In the gardens stands the Mausoleum where Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert are buried.
THE PALACE OF HOLYROODHOUSE
Founded as a monastery in 1128, the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh is The Queen's official residence in Scotland. Situated at the end of the Royal Mile, the Palace of Holyroodhouse is closely
associated with Scotland's turbulent past, including Mary, Queen of Scots, who
lived here between 1561 and 1567. Successive kings and queens have made the Palace of Holyroodhouse the premier royal residence in Scotland. Today, the Palace is the
setting for State ceremonies and official entertaining.
BALMORAL CASTLE
Balmoral Castle on the Balmoral Estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland is the private residence of The Queen. Beloved by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Balmoral Castle has remained a favourite residence for The
Queen and her family during the summer holiday period in August and September.
The Castle is located on the large Balmoral Estate, a working estate which aims
to protect the environment while contributing to the local economy.
The Estate grounds, gardens and the Castle Ballroom
are open to visitors from the beginning of April to the end of July each year,
under the management of the Balmoral Estate Office.
SANDRINGHAM HOUSE
Sandringham House in Norfolk has been the private
home of four generations of Sovereigns since 1862. The Queen and other members
of the Royal family regularly spend Christmas at Sandringham and make it their
official base until February each year.
Like Balmoral, the Sandringham Estate is a commercial
estate managed privately on The Queen's behalf. Sandringham House, the museum
and the grounds are open to visitors.
ST JAMES’S PALACE
St. James's Palace is the senior Palace of the
Sovereign, with a long history as a royal residence. As the home of several
members of the Royal Family and their household offices, it is often in use for
official functions and is not open to the public.
KENSINGTON PALACE
Kensington Palace in London is a working Royal
residence. Of great historical importance, Kensington Palace was the favourite
residence of successive sovereigns until 1760. It was also the birthplace and
childhood home of Queen Victoria. Today Kensington Palace accommodates the
offices and private apartments of a number of members of the Royal Family.
Although managed by Historic Royal Palaces, the Palace is furnished with items
from the Royal Collection.
HISTORIC RESIDENCES
Some of the most celebrated Royal residences used by
former kings and queens can still be visited today.
The Tower of London, begun by William I, is a
fascinating complex constructed over several centuries. It provided historic
Royal families with a residence for more than five centuries, and was a prison
for other Royal figures, including Lady Jane Grey. The Tower housed the Royal
Mint until 1810. There were also armouries and workshops in which weapons were
designed and manufactured; items including armour worn by Henry VIII remain
there today. The Tower remains the storehouse of the Crown Jewels and regalia,
as it has done for nearly 700 years. Today the Tower is under the management of
the Historic Royal Palaces Trust.
Hampton Court Palace is also managed by Historic Royal Palaces.
Given by Cardinal Wolsey to Henry VIII c.1526, the palace was a residence for
figures including Mary I and Elizabeth I, Charles I, William III and Mary II,
and retains many furnishings and objects from their times. It houses some
important works of art and furnishings in the Royal Collection.
The Banqueting House in Whitehall is the only
remaining part of London's old Palace of Whitehall. It was created by Inigo
Jones for James I. Charles I commissioned Rubens to paint the vast ceiling
panels, which celebrate kingship in general and the Stuart reign in particular.
It was from the Banqueting House that Charles I stepped on to the scaffold on 30 January 1649. In 1689 the Prince and Princess of Orange went to the Banqueting House to
accept the crown, becoming joint Sovereigns William III and Mary II. Today the
Banqueting House is managed by Historic Royal Palaces.
Other historic Royal residences which can be visited
include Osborne House, the beloved home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on
the Isle of Wight, and the Brighton Pavilion, former residence of George IV
when he was Prince Regent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Thorpe, Lewis,
trans., Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain, Penguin Books, London, 1966;
G. R. Elton, Modern Historians
on British History, 1485–1945:
A Critical Bibliography,
1945–1969 (1971);
P. Catterall, British
History, 1945–1987:
C. Read, Bibliography of
British History: Tudor Period, 1485–1603 (2d ed. 1959, repr. 1978);
C. L. Mowat, Great Britain since 1914 (1971);
G. Davies, Bibliography of
British History: Stuart Period, 1603–1714 (1928; 2d ed., ed. by M. F.
Keeler, 1970);
Sir George Clark, ed., The Oxford History of England (2d ed., 16 vol., 1937–91);
G. S. Graham, A Concise
History of the British Empire (1971);
F. E. Halliday, A Concise
History of England (1980);
F. M. L. Thompson, ed., The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950 (1990);
Encyclopedia Britannica