England, kingdom of

England, kingdom of The kingdom of England was created by its monarchs. Successive rulers, sometimes from ambition, sometimes from fear, strengthened their armed forces, extended their boundaries, imposed law and order on their quarrelling subjects, introduced standardized coinage and administration, and encouraged one religion. There were moments when the kingdom seemed in danger of being washed away or disintegrating—in the 9th cent. when the Vikings overran most of the country, or during the great Civil War when the nation seemed about to destroy itself.

The evolution of the kingdom of England had, therefore, two aspects, its relations with other peoples—Britons, Vikings, French, Scots, Welsh, Irish—and its development as an effective political and military organism. Many of the characteristics of the English kingdom which emerged derived from the circumstances of the Anglo‐Saxon settlements. The settlers came largely from Schleswig‐Holstein. The fact that much of the north and west of the mainland was mountainous influenced the ultimate division between Saxon and Celt. The mountains of Wales and Scotland provided refuges: they were also less attractive to settlers and less worthwhile to conquer. The English settlers were divided into a number of kingdoms, waging constant warfare. The enmities between them invited Celtic counter‐attack if it could be organized. But the Celts were also divided and, though they were able to inflict sharp defeats on the Saxons, they were not able to drive them out. While the small kingdoms of East Anglia, Kent, Essex, Mercia, Northumbria, and Wessex struggled for supremacy, a kingdom of England remained a long way off. But in the title of ‘bretwalda’—overlord of Britain—may be seen aspiration, even if the substance was shadowy and fleeting. Had Northumbria been able to consolidate its 7th‐cent. superiority, a more northerly based English kingdom might have come into existence. But with the decline of Northumbria, the struggle was between Mercia and Wessex and the probability was that any English kingdom would be southern.

From the incessant warfare of the Saxon settlement emerged the kingdom of Mercia. In the later 8th cent., Offa (d. 796) overran Kent and Essex, including London, pushed back the Welsh, and confined Wessex to south of the Thames. At one stage he took the title Rex Anglorum. But Mercia's supremacy depended essentially on Offa's personal prestige and his country was in decline before the Viking raids commenced in the 9th cent. By 878, the north and midlands, including Mercia, had fallen to the Danes, and Alfred of Wessex was hanging on precariously in the Somerset marshes.

For some time it looked as if the British Isles might become part of a grand Scandinavian empire. But, in the event, the Vikings promoted the emergence of a kingdom of England. First, by destroying Northumbria and Mercia, they cleared the way for the supremacy of Wessex. Secondly, the effort required to throw back the invaders gave Wessex a new vitality. Alfred's counter‐attack was so vigorous that he was able to divide the country between Wessex and the Danelaw, and his successors built upon his achievements. Edward, his son, and Æthelfleda, his daughter, began the reconquest as far as the Humber, and before his death in 924 Edward had received the submission of northern England. Edgar was said to have been rowed on the Dee at Chester in 973 by British, Welsh, and Scottish kings, though whether this was alliance or homage is not clear.

It follows therefore that when the Normans conquered in 1066 the existence of the kingdom of England was not in jeopardy. Though there was an almost total change of top personnel, there was no mass settlement and the small number of Normans was bound to be absorbed before long. But the ruthless rule of the Norman kings meant that the kingdom was less likely to disintegrate than ever. The main effects were twofold. First, Englishmen and the English language were under a cloud for several generations. Secondly, the country found itself in the wider context of western Europe, as part of an empire which included, at times, most of France.

But the kingdom soon recovered its English character. The Conqueror's youngest son, Henry I, was born in England in 1068, and spoke the language. Within three months of succeeding in 1100 he had married an English princess, the great‐granddaughter of Edmund Ironside. The English language, which had given way in court circles and administration to Norman French or Latin, took longer to recover, partly because of the international utility of Latin. But in 1362 Parliament was opened with a speech in English and the law courts were instructed to hear cases in the English tongue.

In succeeding to the Anglo‐Saxon state, the Normans succeeded to its neighbours in the British Isles. The north of England had never been fully integrated into the Anglo‐Saxon kingdom. William I's answer was the fearsome harrying of the north in 1069 and 1070. Against Scotland, William achieved a temporary supremacy with a campaign in 1072 as far as the Tay. Of more lasting consequence were the Norman advances against Wales and Ireland. The foundation for the eventual conquest of Wales was laid by the creation of the marcher earldoms. In 1171 Henry II landed at Waterford, and received the submission of many of the Irish chiefs.

The transformation of the small Wessex kingdom into a kingdom of Britain was built on these foundations. The conquest of Wales was completed by Edward I, and the principality was brought into the English political and administrative system in 1536 by the Act of Union. The conquest of Ireland proceeded by fits and starts, according to English preoccupations elsewhere. Henry VIII declared himself king of Ireland in 1541. Later, the Elizabethan settlements, the influx into Ulster from Scotland, and the Cromwellian land redistributions strengthened the English position.

Scotland was a different matter. There were repeated attempts by the English to unite the two countries, by diplomacy or conquest. Edward I's gains were cancelled by the disaster which overtook his son at Bannockburn in 1314. A plan to marry Edward VI to Mary, queen of Scots, came to nothing. Unification came as a consequence of Elizabeth's preference for virginity: the marriage of Henry VIII's sister Margaret in 1503 paid off 100 years later when her great‐grandson, James VI, succeeded as James I of England.

A governmental union of his two kingdoms was top of the agenda for James. A combined flag was designed and the name of Great Britain put forward. To a glum Parliament, James outlined the advantages: ‘do we not yet remember that this kingdom was divided into seven little kingdoms, besides Wales … And hath not the union of Wales to England added a greater strength thereto?’ It was to no avail. ‘We should lose the ancient name of England, so famous and victorious,’ retorted his opponents. The project foundered.

Where James's arguments failed, Cromwell's sword succeeded. After his victories over the Scots at Dunbar and the Irish at Drogheda, the Scottish and Irish parliaments were wound up. The Instrument of Government in 1653 instituted one Commonwealth Parliament, with 30 MPs each from Scotland and Ireland. The arrangement lapsed at the Restoration, for while the case for union remained strong, Charles II was unwilling to build with Cromwell's bricks.

With the great war against Louis XIV from 1688 onwards and the risk of subversion from a Jacobite Scotland, the matter became urgent. William III was still pushing it when he died. In 1702 more negotiations followed, and when they broke down, relations between the two countries reached their lowest point since the 1540s. The Union of 1707 was essentially a Whig move to secure the Hanoverian succession.Scotland obtained access to English markets, while preserving its own legal, educational, and ecclesiastical system. England gained a greater measure of military security.

The new state was to be known as Great Britain and strenuous efforts were made to persuade all subjects to abandon old animosities. For many years such appeals fell upon deaf ears. Londoners, who had jeered at the Welsh in Pepys's day, jeered at the Scots in Wilkes's. The Union is usually discussed from a Scottish point of view—‘the end of an auld song’. But many of the English looked at it sourly. They objected that Scotland was not paying its fair share and mistrusted its retention of a presbyterian form of church government.

The push towards British unification continued. The next great crisis, when the new British state faced the French Revolution, brought the Union with Ireland in 1801, and yet another change of name to the United Kingdom. Wessex, having swallowed its neighbours in England, had now swallowed its neighbours in Britain. But Ireland proved hard to digest. Whereas the unions with Wales and Scotland undoubtedly contributed to British power, that with Ireland was a dubious asset. In 1916, when Britain was in great peril, it was not possible to apply conscription to Ireland. It is a strange union which the government cannot call upon its people to defend. The breaking away of the Irish Free State suggested that the process of more than 1,000 years was in reverse. How far it would go remains unanswered.

But even should events push the kingdom of England back whence it came, two results of Wessex's supremacy will last for some time. The great imperial expansion of the 17th and 18th cents. produced America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and spread the practice of parliamentary government throughout the world. The second was that for centuries to come the language of international diplomacy and communication will remain that of Hengist and Horsa, Ælle and Cissa