England: history to 1485

Henry V of England had a reputation as a stern but just ruler. Most of his reign was taken up by war with the French and such was his success that by 1420 he was recognized as the heir to the reigning French monarch, Charles VI, whose daughter he married.

The Great Seal of King Richard I, who spent most of his reign away from England. He was a notable soldier who fought in the third Crusade 1191–92, defeating the Muslim leader Saladin and capturing Acre.

The Great Seal of William I, the Norman king who mounted the last successful conquest of England. He successfully subdued the country and imposed a new system of government dominated by an aristocratic Norman elite.

Four English kings are shown in this illumination from a 13th-century English manuscript of Historia Anglorum, which was written by Henry of Huntingdon between 1130 and 1154, and describes English history from 55 BC. The four kings are (from left to right and top to bottom) William I, William II, Henry I, and Stephen.

At the Battle of Lincoln in 1217, during the first Barons' War, the followers of King John I of England defeated the barons who had offered the English crown to Prince Louis of France (the dauphin).

For the prehistory of England see Britain, ancient, and for England in the Roman period see Roman Britain.

The ‘barbarian’ raids Towards the end of the 4th century AD Roman power and influence in England began to decline. In 409 the Romans withdrew their last legions from the country. Even before the Romans left England there is evidence of sporadic coastal attacks by pirate bands of European origin (probably Saxons), as well as incursions of Picts from the north.

After the Roman withdrawal these attacks became more frequent, and by the middle of the 5th century some of the attackers were beginning to establish permanent settlements in England. The Jutes founded a kingdom in Kent about 450, and during the next 100 years waves of Germanic invaders gradually conquered almost the whole of the country now known as England. Tradition lists these tribes of invaders as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes although there were others too. Collectively they are known as Anglo-Saxons, and their Germanic languages became the origin of the English language. All three tribes were thought to have originated in northwest Germany and Jutland (the Danish peninsula), although the tribal organization of the Jutes shows marked differences from the other two even in the early days of the settlements, and it is now thought the Jutes probably came from the Rhineland.

British resistance The Britons – the indigenous Celtic inhabitants of much of Britain, who had been thoroughly Romanized – were gradually driven back to the mountains of the west; they continued, however, to put up bitter resistance. Later legends refer to a great warrior leader of the Britons, called Arthur, who won several battles against the Saxons, inflicting a severe defeat on them in around 500 at Mons Badonicus (Mount Badon; the place has never been identified). This defeat apparently halted the invasion, but only temporarily.

There must have been a considerable intermingling of the conquered and conquering peoples, but the positive evidence is slight. What is clear, however, is that the invaders imposed their way of life on the areas they settled in its entirety. Their predecessors' language, customs, and religion (Christianity) were eliminated, and the Roman towns, already half-abandoned, fell into complete decay and in several cases were never resettled.

The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms Rival Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were established from the 6th century onwards in Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, and Wessex. The Britons retained independent kingdoms in Strathclyde, Cornwall, North Wales, and West Wales. A constant struggle went on between Northumbria and Strathclyde, Mercia and North Wales, and Wessex and West Wales.

The non-Christian Anglo-Saxon tribes, before the end of the 6th century, have left little definite evidence of their internal history and customs in Britain, and it is only after the conversion to Christianity that England's history assumes clearer outlines. The conversion was carried out in the south principally by St Augustine of Canterbury (597), who had been sent by Pope Gregory I, and in the north by St Aidan of the Celtic Church. England was not easily converted and the Christian kings of Kent and Northumbria were for a long time opposed by the king of Mercia, who adhered to the old Germanic gods.

Once Christianity was definitely established in the major kingdoms, a constant struggle for supreme power in the country was waged between the various rulers, which was to continue until the rulers of Wessex emerged supreme in the 9th century. In 663 the Synod of Whitby was summoned by King Oswy of Northumbria, and here it was finally settled that the English church should follow the rule of Rome and not that of the Celtic Church. This decision linked England to the mainstream of European thought and culture as little else could have done.

Towards the unification of England In the 7th century Northumbria had been the leading English kingdom, ruling up to the River Forth. But its power waned after the annihilation of its armies by the Picts at the Battle of Nechtansmere (685), north of the River Tay in Scotland. Mercia under its kings, Ethelbald and Offa (ruled 757–c. 796), sprang into the foremost position. Under Offa Mercia actually took some part in European affairs. Charlemagne recognized Offa's commanding position in England, and there began to be fairly constant contacts between England and mainland Europe.

With the death of Offa, however, came the overthrow of Mercia, and Wessex soon assumed the dominant position. Egbert, king of Wessex from 802, may be regarded as the first real overlord of England. In turn he conquered or forced to submission all the great kingdoms, and by 829 he had laid at least the foundations of a united England.

The Danes in England The century that followed saw the beginning of the Danish invasions on a large scale. At first the Danes came as Viking raiders, but then in larger numbers, with the intention of settling in England. They conquered Northumbria and East Anglia, and then turned their attention to Wessex. The early life of Alfred the Great of Wessex (reigned 871–899) was taken up in fighting them; but Alfred realized that it was impossible to drive them out entirely, and after the Treaty of Wedmore (878) he gave that part of north and east England between the River Tees and the River Thames – the Danelaw – to the Danes, on condition that they converted to Christianity.

Alfred also adopted the only real means of preventing fresh incursions by the Danes. He built a fleet to guard the English Channel and the east coast, and his ships succeeded in defeating the Danes before they were able to land. By these means Alfred succeeded in keeping peace in the land during the greater part of his reign, and he was thus able to carry out a great number of internal reforms.

Before the end of Alfred's reign (899) the attacks of the Danes had again commenced, and were continued during the reign of his son Edward the Elder. Edward eventually succeeded in establishing his supremacy over the Danelaw, and in 920 he was recognized as the overlord of the whole of England, and his authority seems to have been acknowledged by the Scots and the Welsh.

In the reign of Ethelred (II) the Unready (978–1016) the Danes struck again. Time after time the country was invaded. Ethelred, by means of large levies of a tax called danegeld, bought off the invaders for a time, but they soon returned. In 1002 Ethelred ordered a massacre of Danish settlers, which provoked an invasion led by Sweyn I of Denmark, and in 1013 Ethelred was forced to flee to Normandy. He was briefly restored on Sweyn's death in 1014, but Sweyn's son Canute invaded England again in 1015–16, and on the deaths of Ethelred and his son Edmund (II) Ironside in 1016 Canute was by general consent proclaimed king, and England came completely under Danish rule.

The coming of the Normans Canute was the first and best of the Danish kings. He was succeeded by his two sons, Harold I Harefoot (ruled 1035–40) and Hardecanute (ruled 1040–42). On the death of Hardecanute in 1042, the old Saxon dynasty was restored in the person of Edward the Confessor, the son of Ethelred and of Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy. Edward was much more fitted to be a priest than a king, and during much of his reign the power lay in the hands of his father-in-law, Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and later of Godwin's son, Harold.

Edward, who had no children, had lived under Norman protection while the Danes ruled England and therefore had considerable sympathy with Norman ways. On his death in 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, declared that Edward had promised him the crown, and that Harold had in the past sworn an oath making himself William's vassal.

Harold, however, was confirmed king of England by the Witan (the Anglo-Saxon council) as Harold II, and took up arms in the defence of his kingdom. His brother Tostig, deprived of his earldom of Northumbria as a result of a local revolt in 1065, invaded England and fought together with Harald (III) Hardrada of Norway against Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. The latter was victorious and marched his troops the length of England to confront Duke William's Normans, who had landed at Pevensey in the south of England. In October 1066 Harold was defeated and killed by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, and on 25 December William was crowned king of England as William I. Thus came to an end the Anglo-Saxon period of English history. (For more details about the Anglo-Saxons, see Anglo-Saxon art, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Anglo-Saxon language, and Anglo-Saxon literature.)

The Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest was the beginning of the final process in the welding of the English nation into one body. It brought England into the mainstream of Western European civilization, away from its traditional links with Scandinavia, and broke the thread of development of Anglo-Saxon society and civilization. William's first years as king were spent in establishing his authority in the north and west, and led in 1069–70 to the wasting of the north in response to continued English rebellion.

Conquest was accompanied by the granting of land, confiscated from the king's English enemies, to his Norman followers. The great Anglo-Saxon earldoms disappeared to be replaced by lordships held in feudal tenure granted by the king (see feudalism) by men bound to him by links of kinship and loyalty. William retained much of the old English system of local administration, but all levels of government were now centred on the king's court and came to be dominated by Normans. Normans, likewise, filled all major ecclesiastical offices and the English fell to the bottom of the social scale (see Englishry). The grip William had on the country, the administration he commanded, and the influence the conquest had exerted in so few years is evidenced by the Domesday Book.

The Norman monarchs When William died in 1087 England and Normandy were temporarily separated during the reign of his third son William (II) Rufus (ruled 1087–1100), but were reunited under his youngest son, Henry I. Henry was the first of the Norman kings actively to encourage the fusion of the peoples, he himself marrying a princess of Saxon descent. In 1120 his only son, William, was drowned in the wreck of the White Ship, and the greater part of the rest of Henry's life was taken up in the attempt to get his daughter, Matilda, the Empress Maud, recognized as the heir to the throne.

Henry had coerced the barons into promises to recognize Matilda, but, upon Henry's death in 1135, Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror, was acclaimed king. With the accession of Stephen, civil war broke out and continued throughout most of his reign. The barons were able to exercise their power unchecked and the people, crushed between the forces of the king and of Matilda, suffered a great deal. Finally, in 1153, the Treaty of Wallingford was signed by Stephen and Henry, the son of Matilda and Geoffrey of Anjou. By the terms of this treaty Stephen was to reign until his death, when he was to be succeeded by Henry.

Henry II and the Angevin Empire Henry duly succeeded as Henry II (reigned 1154–89), the first of the Plantagenet kings of England. He ruled not only England, but also Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and Aquitaine in France. He was acknowledged overlord of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and he practically ruled Brittany – in fact his dominions may be regarded as stretching from the Pyrenees to the Orkneys. These dominions are known collectively as the Angevin Empire (‘Angevin’ being the adjective from Anjou).

In the course of his reign Henry was successful in restoring the monarchy to the position of strength it had enjoyed in the last years of William I. He curbed the power of the barons, and established relative peace throughout the realm. He also initiated important developments in law and the administration of justice, and presided over the flowering of the 12th-century renaissance in art and learning. But in one vital area of policy he failed. He did not manage to restore royal authority over the church nor to reduce ecclesiastical privilege, principally because of the actions and personality of Thomas à Becket.

A further notable feature of Henry's reign was the beginning of the conquest of Ireland by Strongbow (Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, died 1176). The last years of Henry's reign were darkened by quarrels with his sons, Richard and John, and his last days were passed in a war with his archenemy, Philip II of France, and with his sons. He was on the verge of surrender when he died in 1189.

Henry was succeeded by his son, Richard (I) the Lion-Heart, who, however, spent much of his time out of England, either on crusade or in France, during which time his brother John plotted against him.

King John and the barons Richard died in 1199 and was succeeded by John (I) Lackland. John had energy that he did not use and ability and intelligence that he usually misapplied, though his reign was probably not as catastrophic to the mass of his subjects as has often been suggested.

The early years of John's reign were occupied in a struggle for the French possessions. In 1204 the great English castle on the River Seine, Château Gaillard, was lost, and Normandy passed into the hands of the French. John did not give up hope, and struggled constantly against the French, forming league after league. But he soon found himself in difficulties at home. In 1205 the barons refused to fight for the recovery of Normandy, and in the following year – in spite of the violent opposition of John – Stephen Langton was appointed archbishop of Canterbury. John refused to recognize him, and in 1208 England was laid under an interdict by the pope suspending all religious services, and later the king was excommunicated.

During this period John's imposition of high taxes had alienated the sympathies of the powerful barons. Gradually he saw himself beset on every side: France threatened, the barons were in a state of near rebellion, and the church thundered its condemnations. Eventually the barons resolved to force the king to issue a charter that would safeguard their liberties.

After a struggle John signed the Magna Carta (the ‘Great Charter’) at Runnymede on 15 June 1215, intending to keep it as little as he had kept most other oaths. Magna Carta was a document drawn up by the magnates with the prime object of confirming their own privileges, but it was to become one of the cornerstones of English liberties. The signing of it reconciled a number of the barons, and John thereafter had more support. He attempted to punish the northern barons who had been chiefly responsible for the Charter, and they in turn invited the Dauphin Louis (son of the French king) to England as king.

Henry III and Simon de Montfort Civil war was still raging in 1216 when John died leaving the throne to his son, Henry III, aged only nine years old. The Charter was confirmed, the barons reconciled, and Louis finally left the country (1217). From 1217 to 1232 the land was ruled by William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (c. 1146–1219), and on his death by Hubert de Burgh.

In 1232 the personal rule of Henry III began, a period that is noted for the domination of foreign favourites. Henry was continually exacting money, and many measures were attempted by the barons to obtain control of the purse.

The most outstanding personality of the reign was Simon de Montfort, who came to England as a favourite of the king and remained to uphold the rights and privileges of the barons. In 1248 he was appointed governor of Gascony, but shortly afterwards was deprived of this post owing to complaints by the Gascons of his severity. He remained out of England until 1253, when he returned to place himself at the head of the barons. In 1258 the king agreed to the Provisions of Oxford, by which the king's powers were in effect transferred to a committee of barons, but in 1264 civil war broke out between the barons, led by de Montfort, and the royalists, whose principal leader was Henry's son, Prince Edward. The royalists were defeated at the Battle of Lewes (1264), and the king and Prince Edward became prisoners. Later in the year Prince Edward escaped, and in the following year at Evesham defeated the barons' army, now much weakened by desertion, and killed de Montfort.

The remainder of the reign passed quietly, the chief power up to 1270 being in the hands of Prince Edward, who in that year departed to the east on crusade. In 1272 Henry III died, and although it was two years before Edward returned to England, there was no dispute over the succession.

Edward I As a law-maker and organizer, Edward I ranks with Henry II and William I. Part of his policy was to construct a united England, Wales, and Scotland. He brought all of Wales under English rule in 1282–84, but became embroiled in a war in Scotland that raged practically from 1294 to 1307. He died in 1307, with the Scots in open rebellion, and just after Robert (I) the Bruce had been crowned king of Scotland.

Edward II Edward II succeeded his father, but he was frivolous and incompetent, and his rule was influenced throughout by his favourites, Piers Gaveston and the Despensers. In 1314 he gathered the largest army that had ever been sent into Scotland, and attempted to relieve Stirling Castle, then besieged by Bruce. He fought the Battle of Bannockburn and met with the greatest defeat ever inflicted upon England by the Scots. Throughout his reign he struggled with discontented barons, and in 1327 he was deposed by his wife, Queen Isabella, and her lover, Roger de Mortimer; later that year he was murdered in Berkeley Castle.

Edward III and the start of the Hundred Years' War Edward II was succeeded by his son, Edward III, who, in 1330, asserted his position and became sole ruler. The early part of his reign was taken up with fighting the Scots, over whom he won a victory at Halidon Hill (1333). Then in 1337 Edward claimed the throne of France, basing his claim on the fact that his mother Isabella was the daughter of Philip IV of France. The claim was largely a pretence, since Edward had previously recognized the king of France and done homage to him as his feudal overlord for Guienne.

Edward's desire to attack France was based partly on economic and defensive reasons, but probably primarily dictated by personal ambition (for more details of the background to and course of the war, see French history to 1515). Edward attacked France from two points, through Guienne and from the north. In 1346 he won the Battle of Crécy, and in the following year besieged and captured Calais. In 1346 the Scots (who were in alliance with the French) had been defeated at Neville's Cross, and the Scottish king taken prisoner.

The French war ceased in 1349 owing to the outbreak of the Black Death, in which about one-third of the population of England perished. One consequence of the pandemic was that there was a severe labour shortage, and wages soared. The Ordinance of Labourers (1351) was intended to keep wages at the level they had been before the Black Death.

The war in France soon resumed, and in 1356 Edward the Black Prince (Edward's eldest son), defeated the French at the Battle of Poitiers (see Poitiers, Battle of). This was the last great victory of Edward III's reign. The rest of his life was spent in dissipation and under the influence of Alice Perrers, his mistress, while his third surviving son John of Gaunt acted as head of government. During the reign, however, great strides were made in the constitutional government of the country, and the power of Parliament increased rapidly. This was owing to the fact that Edward, in order to wage war, was in constant need of supplies, and was prepared to grant certain privileges in order to obtain them. He died in 1377, and was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II, son of the Black Prince.

Richard II Richard had ability but succeeded to a crown already much weakened by the demands of the French war. The period of his personal rule was tyrannical, and was marked by the Peasants' Revolt, provoked by the heavy taxation imposed to pay for the French war. Henry Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, returned from exile in 1399 and deposed him, and Richard was imprisoned and finally murdered in Pontefract Castle.

Henry IV Bolingbroke succeeded in 1399 as Henry IV. He claimed the throne, not by conquest, but by parliamentary election, and was the founder of the House of Lancaster. Though he was never personally popular, he at least kept the country generally at peace. In 1403 Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, nicknamed ‘Hotspur’, rebelled against him, and was supported by the Welsh nationalist Owen Glendower, both of whom were overthrown by Henry IV at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Henry also persecuted the Lollards, the followers of the new religious teaching of John Wycliffe.

Henry V and the war in France Henry V, who succeeded his father in 1413, renewed the war with France. In 1415 he achieved a notable victory at Agincourt. France was at this time divided into factions, and by a series of judicious alliances Henry succeeded in forcing the French king to sign the Treaty of Troyes (1420), which gave Henry the French king's daughter's hand in marriage, the regency of the country, and succession to the throne of France. In 1422, just after the birth of his heir, he died.

Henry VI and the end of the Hundred Years' War Henry V was succeeded on the throne of England by his young son, Henry VI, who was also proclaimed king of France in Paris, while at the same time Charles VII was proclaimed by the French in Bourges. In Henry's minority the government was conducted by regents, his uncles the dukes of Bedford and Gloucester. During the early part of the reign the English still continued to win victories, but finally the French settled their differences and after the appearance of Joan of Arc went from victory to victory. By 1454 the French had driven the English out of all of France except Calais.

The beginning of the Wars of the Roses Meanwhile, Henry VI – the last king of the House of Lancaster – had become insane, and the supporters of the rival House of York began to claim the throne, alleging that their candidate, Richard, Duke of York, was the more direct descendant of Edward III. In 1455 civil war broke out, and continued intermittently until 1485. The name ‘the Wars of the Roses’ was given to this conflict by Walter Scott in the 19th century, after the badges of the rival houses – the white rose of the Yorkists, and the red rose of the Lancastrians.

The Yorkists were at first successful at St Albans (1455), and Henry VI became their prisoner. In 1460 Richard, Duke of York was defeated and killed at Wakefield (see Wakefield, Battle of) by Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI's wife. The following year Richard's son, the Earl of March, coming up from the west, entered London and was proclaimed king by a council of peers as Edward IV. He proceeded to march north, and defeated Margaret at Towton (1461).

Edward IV For some time the country remained more or less at peace. Edward IV's chief adviser, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, called the ‘Kingmaker’, dictated the policy of the country. But Edward flouted the great earl and drove him into the camp of the Lancastrians. Warwick landed from France and forced Edward into exile, proclaiming Henry VI again (1470). Edward, however, returned unexpectedly from exile, defeated and killed Warwick at Barnet (1471), and three weeks later crushed the last hope of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury, where Henry VI's only son, Prince Edward, was killed.

Edward IV was thus firmly established on the throne. A strong ruler, though an opportunist, Edward had little difficulty in maintaining his position. During his reign the revenues of the Crown greatly improved, though he did little to increase the authority of the monarchy itself. He was a patron of the new learning and of the art of printing – in many ways a typical Renaissance prince.

Richard III and the end of the Wars of the Roses Edward IV was succeeded by his son, Edward V, who was deposed a few months later and, with his younger brother, declared illegitimate and confined to the Tower of London. By tradition the two princes met their deaths there on the order of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, their uncle, who had himself proclaimed king in June 1483.

Richard III was personally brave, and an able administrator. But a widespread conspiracy against him was soon in existence and rumours that he had murdered his nephews increased his unpopularity. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, the Lancastrian claimant to the throne, took advantage of the situation. He defeated and killed Richard at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, and was crowned king as Henry VII after the battle.

For the history of Wales during this period see Wales: history to 1066, Wales: history 1066 to 1485. For the history of Scotland during this period see Scotland: history to 1058 and Scotland: history 1058 to 1513.