Earliest Times • stone age (central core of flint, flakes of flint) • neolithic people (farming, pottery) • 3000 BC – henges • 2400 BC – “beaker” people (bronze) • 700 BC – the Celts (iron, tribes, druids, Boadicea (AD 61)) • Romans – reading and writing, Hadrian’s wall, roads, villas) • AD 430 – Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes)

  • Bede
  • King Offa of Mercia
  • witan, shires, strips of land, manor, class system
  • monk Augustine (archbishop of Cantenbury (601))
  • Alfred (monasteries, system of law, AD 878 battle with Vikings)
• AD 856 – the Vikings – treaty with Alfred • AD 950 – Danish Vikings – Ethelred A-S (regular tax system (paid Vikings to stay away)

  • Cnut D-V
• Edward the Confessor – Norman (church, manor) • Harold – AD 1066 – defeated the Danes in Yorkshire

  • William landed in England – battle near Hastings

The Early Middle Ages • William the Conqueror – feudalism

  • the Domesday Book
  • sons : Robert (Normandy), William Rufus (England, †hunting accident), Henry (after Rufus’s death took the crown)
• Henry – defeated Rober, united Normandy & England

  • daughter Matilda /+ Geoffrey Plantagenet (Henry quarreled with him)/
  • nephew Stephen of Blois – after Henry’s death raced to England to claim the crown
> Matilda attacked England what caused civil war> 1153 Matilda’s son Henry will succeed the throne • Henry II. – manor again became the centre of administration & life

  • /+ Eleanor of Aquitaine/ - later on he quarreled with her and his sons Richard & John took their mother’s side and fought against their father
  • 1170 Thomas Becket
  • conquered Ireland
  • trial by jury
  • †1189
• Richard I. Lionheart – went to Holy Land to fight the Muslims – on his way back was captured by duke of Austria (England had to pay)

  • † 1199 in France
• John – greedy (king’s court, payments of nobles, taxes)

  • 1204 French king invaded Normandy> nobles lost their lands
  • 1209 quarreled with Pope on who will be the Archbishop of Cant.> closed churches> John gave in in 1214
  • 1215 hoped to recapture Normandy – lords did not trust him & together with merchants marched to London> Magna Carta + committee, paid fighters
  • †1216
• Henry III. – expensive Pope wars

  • Simon de Montfort – 1258 took over government – Parliament, defeated and killed in 1265
  • †1272
• Edward I. – House of Commons (mixture of gentry and merchants)

  • 1242 Llewelyn ap Gruffydd
  • 1282 united Wales and England> baby son becomes the Prince of Wales
  • drained Ireland – “the Pale”
  • 1290 – Scotland – John de Balliol
  • invaded Scotland against rebels – William Wallace’s people’s army 1297 (†Wallace – Scottish nationalism)
+ Robert Bruce – freed Scotland 1314 -†1307 • Edward II. – defeated by Bruce at Bannockbury 1314

  • †1327 murdered