England (
/ˈɪŋɡlÉ™nd/ (help·info)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom.[5][6][7] Its mainland is on the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. England shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; and adjoins the Irish Sea to the north-west, the Celtic Sea to the south-west and the North Sea to the east. The English Channel separates it from continental Europe. In addition to the mainland, England includes over 100 smaller islands, including the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. England's population is about 51 million, around 84% of the United Kingdom.
England has been settled by humans of various cultures for over 29,000 years,[8] but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled Great Britain during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and after the Age of Discoveryhas had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world;[9] England was where theEnglish language, the Anglican Church and English law, which forms the basis of thecommon law legal systems of countries around the world, developed. The innovations that came from England have been widely adopted by other nations, such as its parliamentary system, which is the world's oldest.[10] During the 18th century England underwent theIndustrial Revolution and became the first country in the world to industrialise.[11] Its Royal Society laid the foundations of modern experimental science.[12]
Most of England is lowland, but there are upland regions in the north (such as the Lake District, Pennines and Yorkshire Moors) and in the south and south west (such as Dartmoor, the Cotswolds, and the North and South Downs). London, a global city and England's capital, is the largest metropolian area in the United Kingdom and the largest urban zone in theEuropean Union by most measures.[note 1] The population of England is concentrated in London and the South East, as well as the conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, theNorth East and Yorkshire, which developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century.
The Kingdom of England (which included Wales) was a sovereign state until 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union, put into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, and resulted in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland that created the unitedKingdom of Great Britain.[13] In 1800, Great Britain was united with Ireland through anotherAct of Union 1800 to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 theIrish Free State was established as a separate dominion, but the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act in 1927 reincorporated into the kingdom six Irish counties to officially create the current United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
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Etymology
The name "England" is derived from the Old English word Englaland, which means "land of the Angles". The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in England during theEarly Middle Ages. The Angles came from the Angeln peninsula, flanked on either side by the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.[14] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of "England" to refer to the southern part of the island of Great Britain was in 897 and its modern spelling was first used in 1538.[15] The earliest attested mention of the term in general, is by Tacitus in his 1st century work Germania, where the Latin word Anglii is used.[16] The etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars; it has been suggested it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape.[17]
The name Albion was originally used to denote the entire island of Great Britain. The oldest mention of it is found in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically De Mundo from the 4th century.[18] Within the work it states, "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules is the ocean that flows round the earth. In it are two very large islands called Britannia; these are Albion and Ierne".[18] The word Albion (Ἀλβίων) or insula Albionum has two possible origins. It either derives from the Latin albus meaning white, a reference to the white cliffs of Dover, which is the first view of Britain from the European Continent.[19] An alternative origin is suggested by the ancient merchant's handbook Massaliote Periplus which mentions an "island of the Albiones".[20] Albion is now applied to England in a more poetic capacity [21] Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh Lloegr and used in Arthurian legend.
History
Prehistory and antiquity
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The oldest proto-human bones uncovered in the area date from 700,000 years ago. The discovery, of Homo erectus remains, was made in what is today Norfolk and Suffolk.[22] Modern humans first arrived in the area around 35,000 years ago;[23] but due to the tough conditions of the Last Ice Age, known specifically in this area as the Devensian glaciation,[24] they fled from Britain to the mountains of southern Europe. Only large mammals such as mammoths, bison and woolly rhinoceros remained.[23] Roughly 11,000 years ago, when the ice sheets began to recede, humans repopulated the area; genetic research suggests they came from the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula.[25] The sea level was lower than now; Britain was connected by land to both Ireland and Eurasia. As the seas rose, it was separated from Ireland 9,000 years ago and from Eurasia half a century later. Beaker culture arrived around 2500 BC, and the making of food vesselsconstructed out of clay and copper was introduced.[26] It was during this time that major Neolithicmonuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury were constructed. By heating together tin and copper, both of which were in abundance in the area, the Beaker culture people were able to make bronze and afterwards iron from iron ores. Using sheep's wool, they were able to spin and weave, developing clothing in preference to simple animal skins.[26]
During the Iron Age, Celtic culture, deriving from the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, arrived from Central Europe. Many new developments were introduced. Iron smelting helped in creating better ploughs and thus agriculture advanced; smelting also helped the development of higher quality weapons.[26] Brythonic was the spoken language during this time. Society was tribal; according to Ptolemy's Geographia there were around twenty different tribes in the area, however earlier divisions are unknown because the Britons were not literate. Like other regions on the edge of the empire, Britain had long enjoyed trading links with the Romans. Julius Caesar of theRoman Republic attempted to invade twice in 55 BC; though largely unsuccessful, he managed to set up a client king from the Trinovantes. The Romans conquered Britain in AD 43 during the reign of Emperor Claudius, and the area was incorporated into the Roman Empire as Britannia province.[27] The best known of the native tribes who attempted to resist were the Catuvellauni led by Caratacus. Later, an uprising led by Boudica, queen of the Iceni, resulted in her death at Watling Street.[28] This era saw a Greco-Roman high culture prevail with the introduction of law and order, Roman architecture, personal hygiene, sewage systems, education, many agricultural items, and silk.[28] In the 3rd century, emperor Septimius Severus died at York, and in that city Constantine was proclaimed emperor. Christianity was first introduced around this time, though there are traditions linked to Glastonbury claiming an introduction through Joseph of Arimathea, while others claim through Lucius of Britain. With the decline of the Roman Empire the Romans had departed from the island by 410 to defend their frontiers in continental Europe.[28]
Middle Ages
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Following the Roman retreat, Britain was left open to invasion by tough, pagan, seafaring warriors such asSaxons and Jutes who gained control in areas around the south-east.[29] This advance was contained for a while after the British led Battle of Mount Badon. In the north there were Sub-Roman Brythonic kingdoms known collectively as the Hen Ogledd, however these too were gradually conquered by Angles during the 6th century. Reliable contemporary accounts from this period are quite scarce, as is archaeological evidence, meaning it was a Dark Age. There are various conflicting theories on the extent and process of the invasion—to conflate the issue Cerdic, founder of the Wessex dynasty may have been a Briton.[30] By the 7th century a coherent set of petty kingdoms known as the Heptarchy had emerged, they were; Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex.[31] Christianity was reintroduced in the south by Augustine from Rome and in the north by Aidan from Ireland.[32] The title Bretwalda meaning Lord of the Britons denoted the most influential kingdom.[33] Northumbria and Mercia were the most dominant forces early on. However, following Viking conquests in the north and east, with the insertion of Danelaw, the premier English kingdom became Wessex under Alfred the Great. His grandson Athelstan unified England in 927, though this was only made permanent when Edred defeated Eric Bloodaxe. A short-lived empire under Viking king Cnut the Great which included England, Denmark and Norway existed.[34] However the Wessex dynasty was restored under Edward the Confessor.
Its ties and nature, however, were forever changed following the Norman conquest of England in 1066.[why?] In the next few hundred years, English kings controlled parts of France, and the "Kings of England" used England as a source of troops to enlarge their personal holdings in France (Hundred Years' War). The English crown did not relinquish its last foothold on mainland France until Calais was lost, in 1558, during the reign of Mary Tudor (the Channel Islands are still crown dependencies, though not part of the UK). In the 13th century Wales (the remaining Romano-Celts) was brought under the control of English monarchs by conquest. This was formalised in the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and Wales was legally annexed to the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Wales shared a legal identity with England as the joint entity originally called England, and later England and Wales. The Black Death, an epidemic of catastrophic proportions, first reached England in the summer of 1348. The Black Death is estimated to have killed between a third and two-thirds of Europe's population. England alone lost between a third to half of its inhabitants.[35][36] The plague repeatedly returned to haunt England throughout the 14th to 17th centuries. TheGreat Plague of London in 1665–1666 was the last such plague outbreak.[37]
Early Modern
During the English Reformation in the 16th century, the external authority of the Roman Catholic Church in England was abolished and replaced with Acts of Royal Supremacy and the establishment of the Church of England (Anglican Church) under the Supreme Governance of the English monarch. This occurred during the reign of Henry VIII. The English Reformation differed from its European counterparts in that its roots were more political than theological.[note 2] The English Reformation paved the way for the spread of Anglicanism in the church and other institutions. The period known as the English Civil War (1642-1651) saw political machinations and armed conflicts between supporters of the Long Parliament (Roundheads) and of King Charles I (Royalists) in the First English Civil War of 1642 to 1645 and Second English Civil War of 1648 to 1649, followed by conflict between supporters of the Rump Parliament and of King Charles II in the Third English Civil War of 1649 to 1651. The civil war ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. It had led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son Charles II, the replacement of the English monarchy with the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and personal rule by Oliver Cromwell during The Protectorate (1653–1659).[39]
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After Cromwell's death in 1659, a brief return to Commonwealth rule was attempted before Parliament invited Charles II to return to England in 1660 and restore the monarchy. During theinterregnum, the Church of England's monopoly on Christian worship in England came to an end and theProtestant Ascendancy consolidated in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established a precedent that British monarchs could not govern without parliamentary consent, although this would not be cemented until theGlorious Revolution later in the century. Although embattled for centuries, the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland had been drawing increasingly together since the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century,[40] and in 1603, with the Scottish king James VI accession to the English crown, the two countries became linked by apersonal union, being ruled by the same Stuart dynasty.[41] Following a number of attempts to unite the Kingdoms, a Treaty of Union was agreed on 22 July 1706 by representatives of the English and Scottish parliaments,[42] and put into effect by the Acts of Union which resulted in political union between the states with the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 May 1707.[40] (Ireland joining in 1801 with all of Ireland except Northern Ireland leaving in 1922 has resulted in the current name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland).
Contemporary
After the Union, England (including Wales) retained its separate legal identity since the continuance of the separate Scottish legal system was enshrined in the Articles of the Treaty of Union.[43] Wales was already part of the Kingdom of England but the Wales and Berwick Act 1746made explicit that laws passed for England were automatically applicable to Wales. The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 also referred to the formerly Scottish burgh of Berwick-upon-Tweed. The border town changed hands several times and was last conquered by England in 1482,[44]but was not officially incorporated into England. Contention about whether Berwick was in England or Scotland was ended by the union of the two in 1707. Berwick remains within the English legal system and so is regarded today as part of England. The county of Monmouthshire had been an ambiguous area with its legal identity passing between England and Wales at various periods; in the Local Government Act 1972 it was made part of Wales. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are Crown dependencies and are not part of England nor the United Kingdom.[45][46]
Governance
Politics
As part of the United Kingdom the basic political system in England is a constitutional monarchy andparliamentary democracy. There has not been a Government of England since 1707, when the Acts of Union 1707, putting into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union, joined the England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.[42] Before the union England was ruled by its monarch and the Parliament of England. Today however England is governed directly by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, while other countries of the United Kingdom have devolved governments which England does not have.[47] In the House of Commons which is the lower house of the British Parliament based at the Palace of Westminster—there are 529 Members of Parliament for constituencies in England, out of the 646 total.[48] In the United Kingdom general election, 2005 the Labour Party had the most MPs elected in England with 284, while the Conservative Party had 194 MPs elected although they received a larger percentage of the popular vote than any other party with 35.7%.[49] The third largest party are the Liberal Democrats who had 47 MPs elected—Respect and Heath Concern each have one MP, there is anIndependent Labour member originally elected for Labour.[49] The two largest parties are led by Gordon Brown for Labour and David Cameron for Conservatives.
As the United Kingdom is a member of the European Union, there are elections held regionally in England to decide who is sent as Members of the European Parliament. The 2009 European Parliament electionsaw the regions of England elect the following MEPs; twenty-three Conservatives, ten Labour, nine United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), nine Liberal Democrats, two Greens and two British National Party(BNP).[50] Since devolution, in which other countries of the United Kingdom—Scotland, Wales andNorthern Ireland—each have their own devolved parliament or assemblies for local issues, there has been debate about how to counterbalance this in England. Originally it was planned that various regions of England would be devolved, but this was rejected in a referendum.[51] One major issue is the West Lothian question, in which MPs from Scotland and Wales are able to vote on legislation effecting only Engand, while English MPs have no equivalent right to legislate on devolved matters.[52] This when placed in the context of England being the only country of the United Kingdom not to have free cancer treatment, prescriptions, residential care for the elderly and free top-up university fees,[53] has led to a steady rise inEnglish nationalism.[54] Some have suggested the creation of a devolved English parliament,[55] while others have proposed simply limiting voting on legislation which only effects England to English MPs.[56]
Law
The English law legal system, developed over the centuries, is the foundation of many legal systemsthroughout the Anglosphere.[57] Despite now being part of the United Kingdom, the legal system of theCourts of England and Wales continued as a separate legal system to the one used in Scotland as part of the Treaty of Union. The general essence of English law is that it is made by judges sitting in courts, applying their common sense and knowledge of legal precedent—stare decisis—to the facts before them.[58] The court system is headed by the Supreme Court of Judicature, consisting of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice for civil cases and the Crown Court for criminal cases.[59] The House of Lords is the highest court for both criminal and civil cases in England and Wales though constitutional changes will soon see those powers transfer to a new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.[60] A decision of the highest appeal court in England and Wales, the House of Lords, is binding on every other court in the hierarchy, which follow its directions.[61] Crime increased between 1981–1995, though since then there has been 42% fall in crime for the period 1995–2006.[62] The prison population doubled over the same period, giving it the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe at 147 per 100,000.[63] Her Majesty's Prison Service reporting to the Ministry of Justice, manages most prisons, housing over 80,000 convicts.[63]
Regions, counties and districts
The subdivisions of England consist of as many as four levels of subnational division controlled through a variety of types of administrative entites. They have been created for the purposes of local government in England. The highest tier of local government are the nine regions of England—North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East, South East, South West andGreater London. These were created in 1994 as Government Offices, used by the British Government to deliver a wide range of policies and programmes regionally.[64] They are used for electing Members of the European Parliament on a regional basis. After devolution began to take place in other parts of the United Kingdom it was planned that referendums for the regions of England would take place for their own regional assemblies as a counterweight. London accepted in 1998—the London Assembly was created two years later. However, the proposal was rejected by the northern England devolution referendums, 2004 in the North East, further referendums were cancelled.[51] There are plans to abolish the remaining regional assemblies in 2010 and transfer their functions to respective Regional Development Agencies and new system of Local Authority Leaders’ Boards.[65]
Below regional level are the counties of England and unitary authorities—for administrative and governmental purposes there are metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties.[66] Metropolitan countieswhile still existing for statistical and ceremonial purposes, no longer have county councils since their powers were devolved to district level, known as metropolitan boroughs acting practically as unitary authority areas—these exist mostly in heavily urbanised areas.[66] Non-metropolitan counties are known as shire counties and they exist typically, though not always, in more rural areas. These exist as part of a two-tier structure, with shire counties having county councils but also the districts which they are made up of act in a unitary authority role.[66]Greater London has a different system for local governance, with thirty-two London boroughs and the City of London covering a small area at the core, which is governed by the City of London Corporation.[67] There are the ceremonial counties which act in a largely non governmental role.[68] These counties are used primarily for a geographical frame of reference and have developed gradually since the Middle Ages. Each of them elect a Lord Lieutenant and High Sheriff, these posts are used to represent the British monarch locally.[68] At the most localised level, much of England is divided into parishes with councils; they do not exist in Greater London.[69]
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