The Early Tribes on the British Isles.

The Early Tribes on the British Isles.

About 3000 BC Neolithic (or New Stone Age)people crossed the narrow sea from Europe These

people kept animals and grew corn crops, and knew how to make pottery. Yet the monuments remain. After 3000 BC the chalkland people started building great circles of earth banks and ditches. Inside, they built wooden

buildings and stone circles. These "henges", as they are called, were centers of religious, political and economic power. By far the most spectacular, both then and now, was Stonehenge.

The Beaker people probably spoke an IndoEuropean language. They seem to have brought a single culture to the who le of Britain. They also brought skills to make bronze tools and these began to replace stone ones.

Around 700 BC, another group of people began to arrive. Many of them were tall, and had fair or red

hair and blue eyes. These were the Celts, who probably came from central Europe or further east, from southern Russia, and had moved slowly westwards in earlier centuries. The Celts were technically advanced. They knew how to work with iron, and could make better weapon s than the people who used bronze.

The way of life and art of Celts.

The Celtic tribes continued the same kind of agriculture as the Bronze Age people before them. But their use of iron technology and their introduction of more advanced ploughing methods

made it possible for them to farm heavier soils. However, they continued to use, and build, hill forts. The increase of these, particularly in the southeast, suggests that the Celts were highly

successful farmers, growing enough food for a much larger population.

The hill -fort remained the centre for local groups. The insides of these hill -forts were filled with houses, and they became the simple economic capitals and smaller "towns" of the different tribal areas into which Britain was now divided. Today the empty hill -forts stand on lonely hill tops.

 

Celtic religion and society

According to the Romans, the Celtic men wore shirts and breeches (knee-length trousers), and Striped or checked cloaks fastened by a pin. It is possible that the Scottish tar tan and dress developed from this "striped cloak". The Celts were also "very careful about cleanliness and neatness", as one Roman wrote. "Neither man nor woman," he went on, "however poor, was seen either ragged or dirt y."

The Celtic tribes were ruled over by a warrior class, of which the priests, or Druids, seem to have been particularly important members. These Druids could not read or write, but they memorised all the religious teachings, the tribal laws, history, medicine and other knowledge necessary in Celtic society. The Druids from different tribes all over Britain probably met once a year. They had no temples, but they met in sacred groves of trees, on certain hills, by rivers or by river sources. We know little of their kind of worship except that at times it included human sacrifice.

During the Celtic period women may have had more independence than they had again for hundreds of years. When the Romans invaded Britain two of the largest tribes were ruled by

women who fought from their chariots. The most powerful Celt to stand up to the Romans was a woman, Boadicea. She had become queen of her tribe when her husband had died. She was tall, with long red hair, and had a frightening appearance. In AD 6 1 she led her tribe against the

Romans. She nearly drove them from Britain, and she destroyed London, the Roman capital, before she was defeated and killed. Roman writers commented on the courage and strength of women in battle, and leave an impression of a measure of equality between the sexes among the richer Celts.

The Roman invasion.

The name "Brita in" comes from the word "Pretani ", the Greco-Rorman word for the inhabitant s of Brita in. The Romans mispronounced the word and called the island "Britannia".

The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing to Britain.

Julius Caesar first came to Britain in 55 BC, but it was not until almost a century later, in AD 43, that a Roman army actually occupied Britain.

The Romans could not conquer "Caledonia", as they called Scotland, although they spent over a century trying to do so. At last they built a strong wall along the northern border, named after the Emperor Hadrian who planned it. These towns were built with stone as well as wood, and had planned streets, markets and shops. Some buildings had central heating. They were connected by roads which were so well built that they survived when later roads broke up. These roads continued to be used long after the Romans left, and became the main roads of modern Brita in.

Barons.

William I introduced the rank of baron in England to distinguish those men who had pledged their loyalty to him under the feudal system. Previously, in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England, the king's companions held the title of earl and in Scotland, the title of thane. All who held their feudal barony "in-chief of the king", that is with the king as his immediate overlord, became alike barones regis ("barons of the king"), bound to perform a stipulated annual military service, and obliged to attend his council. Eventually the greatest of the nobles, especially those in the marches, such as the Earls of Chester or the Bishops of Durham, whose territories were often deemed palatine, that is to say "worthy of a prince", might refer to their own tenants as "barons", where lesser magnates spoke simply of their "men" (homines).

The robe worn by a baron during his creation ceremony in 17th-century Britain, engraved by Wenceslas Hollar. Initially those who held land directly from the king by military service, from earls downwards, all bore alike the title of baron, which was thus the factor uniting all members of the ancient baronage as peers one of another. Under King Henry II, the Dialogus de Scaccario already distinguished between greater barons, who held per baroniam by knight's service, and lesser barons, who held manors. Technically, Lords of Manors are barons, or freemen, however they are not entitled to be styled as such. John Selden in his esteemed work Titles of Honour writes, "The word Baro (Latin for Baron) hath been also so much communicated, that not only all Lords of Mannors have been from antient time, and are at this day called sometimes Barons (as in the stile of their Court Barons, which is Curia Baronis, &c. And I have read hors de son Barony in a barr to an Avowry for hors de son fee) But also the Judges of the Exchequer have it from antient time fixed on them."[6] Within a century of the Norman Conquest of 1066, as in the case of Thomas Becket in 1164, there arose the practice of sending to each greater baron a personal summons demanding his attendance at the King's Council, which evolved into the Parliament and later into the House of Lords, whilst as was stipulated in Magna Carta of 1215, the lesser barons of each county would receive a single summons as a group through the sheriff, and representatives only from their number would be elected to attend on behalf of the group. These representatives developed into the Knights of the Shire, elected by the County Court presided over by the sheriff, who themselves formed the precursor of the House of Commons. Thus appeared a definite distinction, which eventually had the effect of restricting to the greater barons alone the privileges and duties of peerage.Later, the king started to create new baronies in one of two ways: by a writ of summons directing a chosen man to attend Parliament, and in an even later development by letters patent. Writs of summons became the normal method in medieval times, displacing the method of feudal barony, but creation of baronies by letters patent is the sole method adopted in modern times. Since the adoption of summons by writ, baronies thus no longer relate directly to land-holding, and thus no more feudal baronies needed thenceforth to be created. Following the Modus Tenendi Parliamenta of 1419, the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, the Feudal Tenure Act (1662), and the Fines and Recoveries Act of 1834, titles of feudal barony became obsolete and without legal force. The Abolition Act 1660 specifically states: baronies by tenure were converted into baronies by writ. The rest ceased to exist as feudal baronies by tenure, becoming baronies in free socage, that is to say under a "free" (hereditable) contract requiring payment of monetary rents.

The role of King.

A king ruled large areas of land/country by divine right. To protect his land from invasion, the king gave parts of it to local lords, who were called vassals. In return, his vassals promised to fight to defend the king's land. The king reported to God and then the pope (and sometimes that was negotiable). 

 

 

The Hundred Years War.

The Hundred Years War was a series of wars between England and France. The background of the Hundred Years War went as far back as to the reign of William the Conqueror. When William the Conquerorbecame king in 1066 after his victory at the Battle of Hastings, he united England with Normandy in France.William ruled both as his own.

Under Henry II, the lands owned by England in France became even larger and the kings who followed Henry found the land they owned in France too large and difficult to control. By 1327, when Edward III became king, England only controlled two areas of France - Gascony in the south and Ponthieu in the north.

In 1328, Charles IV of France died. Charles did not have any sons to take over his land and all his brothers were dead. He did have a sister called Isabella. She was the mother of Edward III and Edward believed that because of this, he should be king of France. However, the French decided that a cousin of Charles, Philip, should be crowned king.

Edward was furious but he was not in a position to do anything in the late 1320’s. By 1337 he was ready to fight for what he believed was his and he declared war on Philip. Edward was not only willing to fight for what he believed was his - the crown of France - but also he feared that Philip was a threat to his possessions in France - Gascony and Ponthieu.

Edward now had to raise an army. There were men who looked forward to fighting abroad in an army as it gave them the opportunity to plunder treasure and bring things back to England which could make them rich. However, many men were not keen on fighting as they were usually more concerned about farming. A war in the autumn could be a disaster as this was harvest time.

The feudal system meant that knights had to provide the king with soldiers when the king demanded them. However, war had moved on from the time of the Battle of Hastings and the longbow was now the most feared of weapons and not the knight on horseback. The king's officials went around England looking for skilled archers. All young men in medieval villages were expected to practice archery so there were many skilled archers to be found. It was left to a village to decide who would actually go to fight but the village as a whole would have to look after the family or families affected by someone leaving. Those who went were paid three pence a day.

Armies were very expensive. Fighting abroad made them even more expensive to run. This problem could be got around by making a local area in France, which was under your control, pay a 'tribune' to you. This would keep your costs down. In return for paying a tribune, the area concerned was given a promise that the troops there would behave themselves and would not damage homes, steal crops and kill animals. In this sense, paying a tribune was similar to buying protection.

The Wars of the Roses.

There were not more than sixty noble families controlling England at this time. Most of them were related to each other through marriage. Some of the nobles were extremely powerful. The discontented nobility were divided between those who remained loyal to Henry VI, the "Lancastrians", and those who supported the duke of York, the "Yorkisrs".

Edward IV put Henry into the Tower of London, but nine years later a new Lancastrian army rescued Henry and chased Edward out of the country. Like the Lancastrians, Edward was able to raise another

army.

 The war between York and Lancaster would probably have stopped then if Edward 's son had been old enough to rule, and if Edward 's brother, Richard of Gloucester, had not been so ambitious.

But when Edward IV died in 1483, hi s own two sons, the twelve-year -old Edward V and his younger

brother, were put in the Tower by Richard of Gloucester. Richard took the Crown and became

King Richard Ill. A month later the two princes were murdered.

Richard III was not popular. Lancastrians and Yorkists both disliked him. In 1485 a challenger with a very distant claim to royal blood through John of Gaunt landed in England with Breron

soldiers to claim the throne. Many discontented lords, both Lancastrians and Yorkists, joined him. His name was Henry Tudor, duke of Richmond, and he was half Welsh. He met Richard III at Bosworth. Half of Richard's army changed sides, and the battle quickly ended in his defeat and death. Henry Tudor was crowned king immediately, on the battlefield

The Red Rose of Lancaster + The White Rose of York = The Red and White Tudor Rose

 

18.   Tudor Absolutism and Reformation of the Church.

The authority of t he law had been almost completely destroyed by the lawless behaviour of nobles and their armed men. Henry used the "Court of Star Chamber", traditionally the kin g's council chamber, to deal with lawless nobles, Local justice that had broken down during the wars slowly began to operate again. Henry encouraged the use of heavy fines as punishment because this gave the Crown money.

Henry's aim was to make the Crown financially independent, and the lands and the fines he took

from the old nobility helped him do this. Henry also raised taxes for wars which he the n did not

fight. He never spent money unless he had to. Henry VIll was quite unlike h is fat he r. He was

cruel, wasteful with money. and interested in pleasing himself. He wanted to become an important influence in European politics. But much had happened in Europe since England had given up its efforts to defeat France in the Hundred Years War.

The Reformation

Henry VIII was always looking for new sources of money. His father had become powerful by taking over the nobles' land. hut the lands owned by the Church and the monasteries had not been touched. The Church was a huge landowner, and the monasteries were no longer important to economic

and social growth in the way they had been two hundred years earlier. In fact they were unpopular because many monks no longer led a good religious life but lived in wealth and comfort.

In 1510 Henry had married Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur. But by 1526 she had still not had a son who survived infancy and was now un likely to do so. Henry tried to persuade the pope to allow him to divorce Catherine.

Henry's break with Rome was purely political. He had simply wanted to control the Church and to

keep its wealth in his own kingdom. He did not approve of the new ideas of Reformation

Protestantism introduced by Mart in Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Geneva. He still believed in the Catholic faith. But when he broke with Rome, he used Parliament to make the break legal. Through several Acts of Parliament between 1532 and 1536, England became politically a Protestant country, even though the popular religion was still Catholic.

 

19.   Elizabethan age.

The Elizabethan era was a time associated with Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558–1603) and is often considered to be the golden age in English history. It was the height of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of English poetry, music and literature. This was also the time during which Elizabethan theatre flourished, and William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of England's past style of plays and theatre. It was an age of exploration and expansion abroad, while back at home, the Protestant Reformation became more acceptable to the people, most certainly after the Spanish Armada was repulsed. It was also the end of the period when England was a separate realm before its royal union with Scotland.

 

The Elizabethan Age is viewed so highly because of the periods before and after. It was a brief period of largely internal peace between the English Reformation and the battles between Protestants and Catholics and the battles between parliamentand the monarchy that engulfed the seventeenth century. The Protestant/Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, and parliament was not yet strong enough to challenge royal absolutism. England was also well-off compared to the other nations of Europe. The Italian Renaissance had come to an end under the weight of foreign domination of the peninsula. France was embroiled in its own religious battles that would only be settled in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes. In part because of this, but also because the English had been expelled from their last outposts on the continent, the centuries long conflict between France and England was largely suspended for most of Elizabeth's reign.

The one great rival was Spain, with which England clashed both in Europe and the Americas in skirmishes that exploded into the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585–1604. An attempt by Philip II of Spain to invade England with the Spanish Armada in 1588 was famously defeated, but the tide of war turned against England with an unsuccessful expedition to Portugal and the Azores, the Drake-Norris Expedition of 1589. Thereafter Spain provided some support for Irish Catholics in a debilitating rebellionagainst English rule, and Spanish naval and land forces inflicted a series of reversals against English offensives. This drained both the English Exchequer and economy that had been so carefully restored under Elizabeth's prudent guidance. English commercial and territorial expansion would be limited until the signing of the Treaty of London the year following Elizabeth's death.

England during this period had a centralised, well-organised, and effective government, largely a result of the reforms of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Economically, the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of trans-Atlantic trade.

 

20.   The Home and Foreign Policy of the Stuarts on the British Throne.

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.

The Civil War in Britain.

The English Civil Wars (1642-1651) stemmed from conflict between Charles I and Parliament over an Irish insurrection. The first war was settled with Oliver Cromwell’s victory for Parliamentary forces at the 1645 Battle of Naseby. The second phase ended with Charles’ defeat at the Battle of Preston and his subsequent execution in 1649. Charles’ son, Charles, then formed an army of English and Scottish Royalists, which prompted Cromwell to invade Scotland in 1650. The following year, Cromwell shattered the remaining Royalist forces and ended the “wars of the three kingdoms,” though Charles II eventually ascended to the throne in 1660.

The civil wars of seventeenth-century England also involved the two other kingdoms ruled by the Stuart dynasty, Scotland and Ireland. The invasion of England by a Scottish army seeking religious concessions in 1639 and again in 1640 precipitated political deadlock in London, which paved the way for a rebellion by Catholic Ireland (October 1641). The struggle between King Charles I and his Westminster Parliament over who should control the army needed to crush the Irish insurrection in turn provoked the outbreak of civil war in England (August 1642). Initially northern and western England, together with much of Ireland, stood for the king, while the southeast (including London), the Royal Navy, and Scotland fought for Parliament. However, at Marston Moor (July 2, 1644) Charles lost control of the north; and the following year, at Naseby (June 14, 1645) the Parliamentary forces led by Oliver Cromwell routed his main field army.

 

Did You Know?

In May 1660, nearly 20 years after the start of the English Civil Wars, Charles II finally returned to England as king, ushering in a period known as the Restoration.

 

Having pacified all England, Parliament turned to the conquest of Ireland and Scotland. Since 1642 the Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny had controlled Irish affairs and periodically aided Charles. However, any chance of rekindling the Royalist cause in Ireland ended in September 1649, when Oliver Cromwell massacred the combined force of Irish Confederates and Royalists at Drogheda and, the following month, captured the Confederate fleet in Wexford.

 

The Cromwellian reconquest of Ireland dragged on until the fall of Galway in April 1652 because of the outbreak of the third English Civil War. Early in 1650, Charles II, son and heir of the executed Charles I, cobbled together an army of English and Scottish Royalists, which prompted Cromwell to invade Scotland; at the Battle of Dunbar (September 3, 1650) he won control of most of Scotland. The following year at Worcester (September 3, 1651) Cromwell shattered the remaining Royalist forces and ended the “wars of the three kingdoms.”

 

The English conflict left some 34,000 Parliamentarians and 50,000 Royalists dead, while at least 100,000 men and women died from war-related diseases, bringing the total death toll caused by the three civil wars in England to almost 200,000. More died in Scotland, and far more in Ireland. Moreover, the trial and execution of an anointed sovereign and the presence of a standing army throughout the 1650s, combined with the proliferation of radical religious sects, shook the very foundations of British society and ultimately facilitated the restoration of Charles II in 1660. This was the last civil war fought on English—though not Irish and Scottish—soil.

Victoria and Albert

Victorian literature

It is important to realize from the outset that the Victorian period is quite long. Victoria’s reign lasted over 63 years, longer than any other British monarch. The Victorian era lasted roughly twice as long as the Romantic period. Keeping in mind that even the relatively short Romantic period saw a wide variety of distinguishing characteristics, it is logical that much longer Victorian period includes even more variety. Below are a few of the noteworthy characteristics which appear often enough to be worth mentioning, but certainly do not encompass the entirety of the period.

The drive for social advancement frequently appears in literature. This drive may take many forms. It may be primarily financial, as in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. It may involve marrying above one’s station, as in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. It may also be intellectual or education-based. Typically, any such attempt to improve one’s social standing must be accompanied by “proper” behavior (thus helping to provide the period with its stereotype).

The period saw the rise of a highly idealized notion of what is “English” or what constitutes an “Englishman.” This notion is obviously tied very closely to the period’s models for proper behavior, and is also tied very closely to England’s imperial enterprises. Many colonists and politicians saw it as their political (and sometimes religious) duty to “help” or “civilize” native populations in colonized regions. It was thus important to have a model which provides a set of standards and codes of conduct, and the idealized notion of what is “English” often provided this model.

Later Victorian writing saw the seeds of rebellion against such idealized notions and stereotypical codes of conduct. These “proper” behaviors often served as subjects of satire; Oscar Wilde’s plays are an excellent example. The later years of the Victorian period also saw the rise of aestheticism, the “art for art’s sake” movement, which directly contradicted the social and political goals of much earlier Victorian literature. One of the fascinating ways of approaching the Victorian period is to examine the influence of these later developments on the Modernist period which follows.

Britain in World War One.

Germany nearly defeated the Allies, Britain and France, in the first few weeks of war in 1914. It had better trained soldiers, better equipment and a clear plan of attack. The French army and the small

British force were fortunate to hold back the German army at the River Marne, deep inside France. Four years of bitter fighting followed, both armies living and fighting in the trenches, which they had dug to protect their men.

in 1916 the government forced men to join the army whether they wanted to or not.

On 1 July 1916 Britain attacked German posit ions on the River Somme The invention of the tank and its use on the battlefield to break through the enemy trenches in 1917 could have changed the course of the war In the Middle East the British fought against Turkish troops in Iraq and in Palestine, and at Gallipoli, on the Dardanelles. There, too, there were many casualties, but many of them were caused by sickness and heat. It was not until 1917 that the British were really able to drive back the Turks.

At the same time popular newspapers, using large print, memorable short sentences and emotional language, encouraged the nation to hate Germany, and to want Germany's destruction.

 

34   Britain in World War Two.

The people of Britain watched anxiously as German control spread over Europe in the 1930s. But some had foreseen this dangerous situation, They believed that the reasons for German expansion could be found in the harsh peace terms forced on Germany by the Allies in 1919, and the failure to involve it in the post-war political settlement. In 1920 the Allies had created the League of Nat ions which, it was hoped, would enable nations to cooperate with ea h other. Although the League did not forbid war, its members agreed to respect and preserve the borders and territory of all other members. But in 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia), a fellow member of the League. Britain and France were anxious to win Italy's co-operation against Hitler, who was illegally rearming Germany, and therefore decided against taking action against Italy as the rules of the League required them to do. T his failure to use the

League's authority had serious results. Italy's Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, and Hitler realised that Britain and France lacked the will to make sure the standards the League demanded of its members were followed.

In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and Britain entered the war. The British felt again that they were fighting for the weaker nations of Europe, and for democracy. T hey had also heard about the

cruelty of the Nazis from Jews who had escaped to Britain.

Britain's new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, persuaded the nation that it was a victory of courage and determination at Britain's darkest hour.

Everyone in Britain expected Germany to invade, but the British air force won an important battle against German planes in the air over Britain. This, however, did not prevent the German air force from bombing the town s of Britain. Almost one and a half million people in London were made homeless by German bombing during the next few months. Once again Church ill brilliantly managed to persuade a nation "on its knees" that it would still win.

Britain could not possibly have defeated Germany without the help of its stronger allies, the Soviet Union and the United States. By 1943 the Soviet army was pushing the Germans out of the USSR, and Britain had driven German and Italian troops out of North Africa. Italy surrendered quickly following Allied landings in July 1943.

 

 3? Conservative party after World War II.

The party responded to its defeat of 1945 by accepting many of the Attlee government's welfare state reforms, while offering a distinctive Conservative edge, as set out in their policy statement Industrial Charter (1947). Until the 1970s the two parties largely agreed on foreign policy, with both supporting NATO (1949-present) and the Anglo-American alliance of the Cold War (1947-1989). Economic recovery was slow, however, and that provided the opening for a comeback.

 

3? Labour party after World War II.

At the end of the war in Europe, in May 1945, Labour resolved not to repeat the Liberals' error of 1918, and promptly withdrew from government, on trade union insistence, to contest the 1945 general election in opposition to Churchill's Conservatives. Surprising many observers, Labour won a formidable victory, winning just under 50% of the vote with a majority of 159 seats.

Clement Attlee's proved one of the most radical British governments of the 20th century, enacting Keynesian economic policies, presiding over a policy of nationalising major industries and utilities including the Bank of England, coal mining, the steel industry, electricity, gas, and inland transport (including railways, road haulage and canals). It developed and implemented the "cradle to grave" welfare state conceived by the economist William Beveridge. To this day, the party considers the 1948 creation of Britain's publicly funded National Health Service (NHS) under health minister Aneurin Bevan its proudest achievement. Attlee's government also began the process of dismantling the British Empire when it granted independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, followed by Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) the following year. At a secret meeting in January 1947, Attlee and six cabinet ministers, including Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, decided to proceed with the development of Britain's nuclear weapons programme, in opposition to the pacifist and anti-nuclear stances of a large element inside the Labour Party.

Labour went on to win the 1950 general election, but with a much reduced majority of five seats. Soon afterwards, defence became a divisive issue within the party, especially defence spending (which reached a peak of 14% of GDP in 1951 during the Korean War), straining public finances and forcing savings elsewhere. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell, introduced charges for NHS dentures and spectacles, causing Bevan, along with Harold Wilson (then President of the Board of Trade), to resign over the dilution of the principle of free treatment on which the NHS had been established.

In the 1951 general election, Labour narrowly lost to the Conservatives despite receiving the larger share of the popular vote, its highest ever vote numerically. Most of the changes introduced by the 1945–51 Labour government were accepted by the Conservatives and became part of the "post-war consensus" that lasted until the late 1970s. Food and clothing rationing, however, still in place since the war, were swiftly relaxed, then abandoned from about 1953.

 

The Early Tribes on the British Isles.

About 3000 BC Neolithic (or New Stone Age)people crossed the narrow sea from Europe These

people kept animals and grew corn crops, and knew how to make pottery. Yet the monuments remain. After 3000 BC the chalkland people started building great circles of earth banks and ditches. Inside, they built wooden

buildings and stone circles. These "henges", as they are called, were centers of religious, political and economic power. By far the most spectacular, both then and now, was Stonehenge.

The Beaker people probably spoke an IndoEuropean language. They seem to have brought a single culture to the who le of Britain. They also brought skills to make bronze tools and these began to replace stone ones.

Around 700 BC, another group of people began to arrive. Many of them were tall, and had fair or red

hair and blue eyes. These were the Celts, who probably came from central Europe or further east, from southern Russia, and had moved slowly westwards in earlier centuries. The Celts were technically advanced. They knew how to work with iron, and could make better weapon s than the people who used bronze.