Who’s who in the British history

Ælfric (c. 955 – c. 1010). Writer and ecclesiastic, called Grammaticus. A monk at Winchester and later abbot of Cerne and the Eynsham, Ælfric was the finest prose stylist of late Anglo-Saxon England. His works include the Catholic Homilies (two sets of sermons), Lives of the Saints and a Latin Grammar.

Æthelred (II) the Unready (c. 968 – 1016). King of England (978 – 1013, 1014 – 16). Æthelred was crowned after his mother, Ælfthryth (or Elfrida), murdered his half-brother Edward the Martyr. Æthelred’s blunders earned him the nickname Unready (deriving from the Old English Redeless, devoid of counsel) and the weakness of England during his reign encouraged the renewal of the Danish invasions. At least five times he bought off the Danes with tributes of silver (danegeld) and on St. Brice’s day 1002 he ordered the massacre of all Danes in his realms. In 1013 Sweyn I Forkbeard of Denmark seized the English throne, but Æthelred was restored after Swayn’s death (1014).

Alfred the Great (849 – 99). King of Wessex (871 – 99), renowned for his defence of England against the Danes and for his encouragement of learning. The Danish invasion of Wessex in 871ended in inconclusive peace, and in 876 the Danes struck again. Based at Athelney, Alfred harassed the enemy until winning, in 878, the great victory at Edington. It is to this period that the probably apocryphal story (told in the 12th-century Chronicle of St. Neot’s) of Alfred burning the cakes relates. The subsequent peace with the Danish leader Guthrum gave the Danes control over much of eastern England (Danelag), but by 890 Alfred’s authority was acknowledged over all the remainder of England.

In the years that followed Edington, Alfred reorganized the fyrd, strengthened the system of burhs (fortresses), and developed a fleet, which enabled him to repel further Danish invasions in the 890s.

Alfred is largely responsible for the restoration of learning in England after the decay in scholarship which the Norse raids had accelerated.

Alfred’s own written works were translations, though he often added new material to his sources. Their order is uncertain, but those that survive are: (1) his translation of Gregory the Great’s Cura Pastoralis, a manual of instruction for the clergy to which Alfred added a preface describing the contemporary decline in learning and outlining his intention to make education more readily available; (2) a translation of the Historia Adversus Paganos by Paulus Orosius, a textbook of universal history to which Alfred added accounts of his experiences of contemporary travellers; (3) a version of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ, originally written entirely in prose but with verse renderings of Boethius’ metrical passages added later; (4) a translation of Augustine’s Soliloquia, which was probably Alfred’s final work. The last two include much additional material, and his authorship of the last has been questioned, though now it seems likely that he did not write it. Alfred probably had a hand in translating a shortened version of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, at one time attributed wholly to him but written largely in a dialect not his own. He may have been instrumental in planning the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, begun during his reign, but there is nothing to suggest that he was involved in writing it.

A great deal of information about Alfred is given in De Rebus Gestis Ælfredi Magni by Asser, a Welsh monk who became his friend and teacher. Written in Latin, it chronicles Alfred’s life from his birth in 887. The account of national events is largely the same as in Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, but Asser added a great deal about Alfred’scharacter and actions. This is at times naive, subjective and fulsome in its praise of the king, but nevertheless remains an invaluable source.

Allen, William, Cardinal (1532 – 94). Scholar and polemicist, in exile from 1565. In 1568 he founded a seminary at Douai to train Englishmen as priests. The he directed the translation of the Rein-Douai Bible. He arranged the first Jesuit mission to England in 1580. A champion of the cause of Philip II of Spain, he hoped, if Philip’s armada succeeded, to become archbishop of Canterbury. He was elected cardinal in 1587.

Bede (673 – 735). Anglo-Saxon historian and scholar, born in Northumbria, who spent most of his life in the monastery at Jarrow. A student of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he was renowned for his scholarship and was known after his death as the Venerable Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which Bede completed in 731, is the most important history written in England before the 16th century. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is not only interesting, it is not only an important historic work, it is a great piece of belles-lettres art, and in this respect Bede may be justly considered as the founder of English literature. King Alfred supervised its translation into Old English. Bede popularized the method of dating anno domini and wrote on a variety of subjects, including physical science, rhetoric, and astronomy.

Cabot, John (c. 1450 – c. 1499). Explorer and navigator. Born in Genoa, he settled in England in 1484. Under Henry VII’s patronage he sailed from Bristol in 1497, with his son Sebastian Cabot (c. 1476 – 1557). They landed at a place that may have been in southern Labrador, Newfoundland, or Cape Breton Island (the coasts of which Sebastian mapped); the Cabots, however, themselves to be in Asia. John died at sea during a second expedition. Sebastian became cartographer to Henry VIII and, later, governor to Merchants Adventurers.

Cædmon, St. (7th century). Author of the earliest surviving poem in Old English. This work, a nine-line fragment, is known from its transcription by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History. Cædmon (according to Bede) was an oxherd on the estates of Whitby abbey who, after miraculously receiving the gift of song, was received as a monk and wrote many poems on religious themes.

Cæsar, Julius (102 – 44 BC). Roman general and statesman. In 55 BC in the course of his conquest of Gaul, Cæsar made his first expedition to Britain but was forced to leave after a few weeks when bad weather damaged his exposed fleet on the Kent coast. The following year he invaded with more troops and, after heavy fighting, defeated the British leader Cassivellaunus, who agreed to pay tribute. A storm ones more wrecked most of Cæsar’s fleet and he returned to Gaul with great difficulty.

Canute see Cnut.

Caxton, William (?1422 – 1497). The first English printer. Born in Kent, he served as a mercer’s apprentice before establishing himself in business in Bruges in about 1446. In 1465 he was appointed a governor at the Merchants Adventurers, negotiating commercial treaties on their behalf. He learned the art of printing at Cologne in the early 1470s and in 1476 returned to England. In 1477 the first book was issued from his press at Westminster, Earl Rivers’ Dictes and Sayenges of the Phylosophers. Between then and his death Caxton produced about 80 complete volumes, including Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and also found time to work on translations. On his death the press was taken over by his chief assistant, Wynkyn de Worde.

Chaucer, Geoffrey (?1340 – 1400). Poet. Son of a London vintner, he entered royal service in 1357. His familiarity with French and Italian literature was acquired on travel abroad on royal business, and while visiting Genoa and Florence (1372 – 73) he may have met Boccaccio and Petrarch. In 1374 he became comptroller of customs, a post he held until 1386, and from 1389 to 1391 he was clerk of the king’s works. He received a pension from Henry IV in 1399. The Canterbury Tales (begun about 1387), his best-known work, is a collection of 23 stories related by members of a group of pilgrims on their way to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. The real triumph and achievement of The Canterbury Tales is in its astonishing stylistic variety. It is the last work of a writer who had absorbed everything the English, French and Italian traditions could teach him and who was now demonstrating its mastery of narrative. Not only do the Tales offer examples of every kind of story told in the Middle Ages – romances, saints’ lives, moral tales, stories of sexual trickery or fabliaux – but within each of these categories Chaucer rings changes and tests limits. His three fabliaux, the Miller’s Tale, the Reeve’s Tale, and the Merchant’s Tale, all show a husband cuckolded by a younger man; yet they are all utterly different in mood and implication.

Clarence, George (1449 – 1478). Brother of Edward IV. He was lord lieutenant of Ireland from 1462 to 1469, when he married Isabel, eldest daughter of Warwick the kingmaker. Clarence and Warwick twice (1469, 1470) invaded England, but after the restoration of Henry VI Clarence gave his support to Edward, whom he helped to regain the throne (1471). Quarrels between the brothers culminated in Clarence’s attainder for plotting by necromancy Edward’s death. Clarence was executed by drowning according to rumour.

Cnut (or Canute) (c. 994 – 1035). King of Denmark and England. He accompanied his brother Sweyn Forkbeard on his invasion of England (1013) and was chosen king of Denmark (1014) on Sweyn’s death. A protracted struggle with Edmund Ironside, king of Wessex, for control of England ended with Edmund’s murder in 1016, and Cnute was crowned in 1017. In the same year he married Emma, the widow of Æthelred II, and by the early 1020s was depending on English more than Danish advisers. His reign was marked by legal and military reforms and, apart from an expedition to Scotland in 1027, internal peace. The famous story of how Cnut demonstrated to flatterers the limitation of his powers, by failing to make the waves recede, was told by Henry the Huntingdon.

Coverdale, Miles (?1488 – 1569). Translator of the Bible. A zealous Protestant, Coverdale was briefly bishop of Exeter (1551 – 53). His translation of the Bible, published in Zurich 1535, was the first complete printed English Bible.

Cranmer, Thomas (1489 – 1556). Archbishop of Canterbury (1533 – 56). In 1529, at the request of Henry VIII, he prepared a treatise justifying the invalidity of the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After becoming archbishop he declared it void and then pronounced that the marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn was valid. He exerted an enormous influence on the English Reformation. After the accession of Edward VI he was largely responsible for the two Books of Common Prayer (1549, 1552) and 42 articles (1553). After the succession of Mary he was burned at the stake.

Ecgbert see Egbert.

Edward II (1284 – 1327). King of England (1307 – 27), son of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile. Born in Cærnarfon, he was the first English prince of Wales (1301 – 07). In 1308 he married Isabel of France. Initially England rejoiced at the accession of the handsome young king, but his extravagance and foolishness made his reign a troubled one. His infatuation with Piers Gaveston angered the barons, who in 1308 forced the king to banish his favourite to Ireland. Gaveston’s return in 1309 was one of the provocations that led to the appointment of the lords ordainers, who forced the king to accept the limitations on royal power contained in the Ordinances (1311). Gaveston was again banished, and his return together with Edward’s attempts to evade the Ordinances led to civil war (1312). Gaveston was executed and the disastrous Scottish campaign, notably the defeat at Bannockburn (1314), so weakened Edward’s position that yielded his authority to his chief opponent and cousin, Thomas, earl of Lancaster. By 1316, however, the king had regained much of his power from the incompetent Thomas and in 1318 found a new favourite, the young Hugh le Despenser. Renewed baronial complaints led to the banishment of Despenser and his father (1321). In 1322 the king recalled them and successfully renewed the war against the barons, capturing and beheading Thomas of Lancaster. Edward was now able to revoke the Ordinances, only to encounter opposition from his wife. In 1325 Queen Isabel, furious at the loss of her estates and humiliated by the king’s love for the yougn Despenser, went to France. There she fell in love with Roger de Mortimer, a bitter enemy of the Despensers. In 1326 Isabel and Mortimer invaded England and 1327 deposed Edward, who died, probably murdered, in Berkeley castle in Gloucestershire. He was succeeded by his son Edward III.

Edward III (1312 – 77). King of England (1327 – 77), son of Edward II and Isabel of France; he married Philippa of Hainault in 1328. He became king after his mother and her lover, Roger de Mortimer, forced his father to abdicate, but assumed personal control of the administration only in 1330, when he had Mortimer executed. Edward did much to revive the prestige of the English monarchy after his father’s disastrous reign. He conciliated the barons, pursued an enlightened commercial policy, and reorganized the navy. His reign, however, was dominated by his wars with Scotland and France. He sought to undermine Scottish independence, supporting the coronation of Edward Balliol in 1332 and twice defeating Edward’s rival David II – at Halidon Hill (1333) and at Neville’s Cross (1336), when David was taken prisoner.

In 1337 Edward led England into the Hundred Years’ War against France, claiming not only full sovereignty over Aquitaine but also the French throne, taking (1340) the title King of France. He was initially successful, winning notable victories at Sluys, at sea (1340), and Crecy (1346) and conquering Calais (1347). In 1355 he resumed hostilities against France to protect his French domains, and at the great victory at Poitiers (1356) King John II of France was captured. His next campaign (1359 - 60) failed and by the treaty of Bretigny (1360) he renounced his claim to the French throne in exchange for recognition of his full sovereignty over his French domains. In the last years of his reign he became increasingly senile and fell under the influence of his mistress Alice Perrers, while government was largely in the hands of his fourth son, John of Gaunt.

Edward the Confessor, St. (1003 – 66). King of England (1042 – 1066). Son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma, daughter of Richard II, duke of Normandy, during Cnut’s reign Edward lived in exile in Normandy. He was crowned in 1043 and in 1045 married Edith, daughter of Earl Godwine. Thereafter Godwine’s family dominated royal policy. Edward lost popularity by placing Normans in high offices in an attempt to counterbalance Godwine’s influence. Tension between the two parties led to Godwine’s brief exile (1051), but he quickly re-established supremacy. In his last years Edward increasingly turned from secular affairs, control of the country being left to the great earls, such as Godwine’s son Harold. Famed for his asceticism and piety, Edward was buried in Westminster abbey (which he founded). He was canonized in 1161.

Edwin (died in 632). King of Northumbria (617 – 632). Son of Ælle, king of Deira, he defeated Æthelric, king of neighbouring Bernicia to become king of a united Northumbria. He was ultimately acknowledged as bretwalda (overlord) of all England except Kent. In 625 he married Æthelburh, Christian daughter of Æthelbert of Kent, and was converted to Christianity (627) by Paulinus, whom he appointed archbishop of York. He died in the battle against Penda of Mercia.

Egbert (or Ecgbert) (died in 839). King of Wessex (802 – 39). Son of vassal king of Kent, Egbert was forced into exile (789) by Offa and lived at the court of Charlemagne until 802, when he was elected king of Wessex. In 825 he defeated Beornwulf of Mercia at the battle of Ellendun, and 828 he temporarily annexed Mercia. Northumbria recognized his lordship and he was styled bretwalda (overlord) in 829. However, Wiglaf re-established Mercian independence in 830, and thereafter Egbert was effective ruler only of Wessex and its dependent kingdoms of Surrey, Sussex, Kent, and Essex.

Elizabeth Woodville (c. 1437 – 1492). Queen consort of Edward IV, the daughter of Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers. She secretly married Edward IV in 1464 and was crowned the following year. The influence she used in securing favours for her family connections made her enemies and following Edward’s death she sought sanctuary at Westminster. She died in Bermondsey abbey.

Gregory I, St. (c. 540 – 604). Pope (590 – 604). A monk, theologian, and one of the greatest of medieval popes, Gregory sent Augustine as missionary to Kent in 596. Feast day: 12 March.

Harold II (?1020 – 66). King of England (Jan. – Oct. 1066). Second son of Earl Godwine, Harold was exiled in the anti-Godwine reaction in 1051 but was restored, after invading England, in 1052. In 1053 he succeeded Godwine as earl of Wessex and thereafter dominated the court and English politics. While at the court of William, duke of Normandy (1064), he swore to aid his accession to the English throne, but on the death of Edward the Confessor he himself became king. He was defeated and killed by William at the battle of Hasings.

Henry III (1207 – 72). King of England (1216 – 72). The son of King John and Isabella of Angouleme, he married Eleanor of Provence in 1236. They had three children: Edward (I), Edmund, and Beatrice. Nine years old at his first accession, during the first Barons’ War, the leading figures in his minority were successively, William Marshal, 1st earl of Pembroke (until his death in 1219) and Hubert de Burgh. In 1227 he declared himself of age. His ineffectual government, financial mismanagement, and dependence on foreign favourites (Poitevins) provoked baronial opposition. The Marshal rebellion (1233 – 34) forced him to dismiss Peter des Roches and Peter des Rivaux, but the Savoyard relations of his wife Eleanor of Provence (whom he married in 1236) aroused further anger. When Henry demanded an exorbitant sum to fulfill a promise to finance papal wars in Sicily in return for the Sicilian crown for his son Edmund the conflict came to a head. The barons issued the Provisions of Oxford limiting the king’s power, and Henry’s renunciation of these led to the outbreak of the second Barons’ War (1264). In May of that year the baronial leader Simon de Montfort captured the king and his son Edwardat the battle of Lewes and ruled England until his death at Evesham in Aug. 1265. In the years of his reign Henry played little part in government, which was largely in the hands of Edward.

Henry V (1387 – 1422). King of England (1413 – 22), son of Henry IV and Mary de Bohun. He was created prince of Wales in 1399 and spent many years fighting the Welsh, notably Owain Glyndwr. In 1415 he resumed the Hundred Years’ war against France, demanding the restoration of English domains in France and claiming the French throne. His first campaign led to the capture of Harfleur and the great English victory at Agincourt (1415). His alliance with Burgundy and with the emperor Sigismund greatly strengthened his hand in negotiating the treaty of Troyes (1420), by which the French king Charles VI made Henry his heir and regent of France and betrothed him to his daughter Catherine of Valois. Henry died of dysentery two months before the death of Charles, leaving his infant son Henry VI, as heir to his claims in France.

Henry VI (1421 – 71). King of England (1422 – 61, 1470 – 71). Only son of Henry V and Catherine of Valois, Henry succeeded to the throne while still an infant and a council of regency, headed by his uncles John of Lancaster, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, governed during his minority (1422 – 37). Henry was crowned at Westminster in 1429 and in Paris, as king of France, in 1430. He had no military or administrative skills and suffered recurrent bouts of insanity, which encouraged the feud between leading magnates that dominated his reign. The conflict between Gloucester and Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, gave way after their deaths (1447) to the power struggle between the king’s chief minister Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and Richard, duke of York. In 1453 – 54, during a phase of Henry’s mental illness, York obtained the protectorship, but after the king’s recovery Beaufort was again in the ascendant. In 1455 the conflict between their two houses, Lancaster and York, erupted in the Wars of the Roses, during which Henry was dominated by his wife Margaret of Anjou, whom he married in 1445. After the Yorkist victories of 1461 the king was deposed by York’s son Edward (IV) and fled to Scotland. Returning in 1464, he was captured in the following year and imprisoned. In October 1470, however, Warwick the king-maker secured Henry’s restoration, which lasted until April 1471, when Edward returned to reclaim the throne. Henry was imprisoned in the Tower, where, after Tewkesbury, he was murdered.

Henry VII (1457 – 1509). The first Tudor king of England (1485 – 1509), son of Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, and Margaret Beaufort. Born during the Wars of Roses, he went into exile in Brittany after the collapse of the Lancastrian cause in 1471. In 1485 he invaded England, landing at Milford Haven in Wales, and Defeated and killed Richard III at Bosworth Field on the 22 August. In October he was crowned and in January 1486 he married Elizabeth of York, thus uniting the houses of Lancaster and York. However, Yorkist plots, notably those of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, continued to threaten his position for most of his reign. In 1489 Henry negotiated the treaty of Medina del Campo with Spain, which arranged for the marriage of his elder son Arthur to Catherine of Aragon, and in 1496 and 1506 respectively, the intercursus magnus and intercursus malus with the Netherlands. He also established peace with Scotland (1499), subsequently (1503) marrying his daughter Margaret to James IV. Henry introduced few innovations in government but his shrewd and resolute rule restored order after the Wars of Roses. His efficient, although sometimes unscrupulous, management of finances left a healthy surplus to his successor, his second son Henry VIII.

James VI of Scots and I of England (1566 – 1625). King of Scots (1567 – 1625) and of England an Ireland (1603 – 25). James, the first Stuart king of England, was the son of Mary Queen of Scotland her second husband, Henry, Lord Darnley. When James succeeded to the Scottish throne in 1567, following his mother’s enforced abdication, he was only 13 months old. His long and troubled minority saw a succession of regents. Religious and aristocratic factions made various attempts to secure the king’s person, and civil war raged until 1573 when the earl of Morton took control of Scotland. In 1586 by the treaty of Berwick James was awarded an English pension; and his cousin Elizabeth I promised not to oppose his claims to the English succession unless he provoked her by his actions in Scotland. This sufficed to ensure James’ acquiescence to his mother’s execution in 1587 and his neutrality when the Spanish armada sailed against England in the following year. In 1592 James consented to an act of parliament establishing Presbyterianism of Scotland; with the support of Presbytarians he was finally able to subdue the Roman Catholic earls of the north. James did much to improve the system of civil government in Scotland and took the first step towards initiating a regular system of taxation. He married Anne of Denmark in 1589.

When James succeeded to the English throne in 1603, he made it clear that there would be no fundamental alteration to the Elizabethan church settlement and that he believed the Anglican church and the monarchy to be independent. His slogan was “no bishop, no king”. One manifestation of the frustration of the religious minorities was the Roman Catholic inspired gunpowder plot of 1604.

James’ experience in Scotland failed to prepare him adequately for the English throne. He was soon in conflict with his parliaments (1604 – 11, the 1614 Addled Parliament, and 1621 – 22) on the question of the extent of his sovereignty and its refusal to grant what he considered adequate revenue. On occasion he sought financial independence by means of extra parliamentary levies. His liking for attractive young men, notably such court favourites as Robert Carr and George Villiers (duke of Buckingham), allienated many Englishmen. Soon after his accession James made peace with Spain, realizing England could no longer afford the crippling costs of war. He aspired to the role of the peacemaker of Europe, acceptable to both Catholics and Protestants. His efforts were ruined both by the strength of Protestant opinion in Britain and by the reluctance of Spain to form an alliance with him. After the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War (1618) on the Continent, James had to settle for a treaty with the Dutch and a French marriage alliance for his heir Charles.

Offa (died in 796). King of Mercia (757 – 96), Crowned after seizing power in the civil war that followed the death of his cousin Æthelbald. Offa consolidated Mercian power over the southern England as well as extending Mercian influence to the north. His daughters married the kings of Wessex and Northumbria, and Offa’s special power in England was recognized by Pope Adrian I. Adrian referred to him as the “king of the English” and agreed to the creation of an archbishop at Lichfield, which freed the Mercian church from the control of Canterbury in Kent. Offa negotiated a commercial treaty with the future emperor Charlemagne on equal terms. He may have built Offa’s dyke and struck a new coinage, issuing the silver penny, which bore his name and title.

Raleigh, Sir Walter (?1552 – 1618). Courtier and explorer. In 1580s he organized several voyages of discovery along the Atlantic seaboard of North America, but an attempt to colonize a region named Virginia (in honour of Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen) was unsuccessful. In 1592 Raleigh fell out of favour with the queen after marrying Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of her ladies in waiting, and in 1595 set off on a fruitless search for the legendary Eldorado supposedly to be found in Guyana. On his return he played a distinguished part in the Cadiz expedition (1596) and also fought the Spanish in the Azores (1597). In 1603, however, Raleigh was accused of conspiring against James I and was imprisoned in the Tower. There he remained until 1616, when he was released for the purpose of undertaking a second voyage in search of Eldorado. The expedition ended in the English destruction of a Spanish settlement, and on his return to England Raleigh was executed. His literary works include The Discovery of the Empire of Guyana (1596), the History of the World (1614), and poetry.

Shakespeare, William (1564 – 1616). Dramatist and poet regarded as the greatest writer in English literature. He was born and educated in Stratford-upon-Avon, had joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men as an actor and playwright by 1592, and became one of the landlords of the new Globe theatre in 1598. Shakespeare’s chief English history plays, for which Holinshed is the main source, are Henry VI, parts 1 – 3, Richard III (1589 – 92), Richard II, Henry IV, parts 1 – 2 (1594 – 97), Henry V (1599), Macbeth (1599), and Henry VIII (1612 – 13).

Between the record of his baptism in Stratford on the 26 April 1564 and the record of his burial in Stratford on 25 April 1616, some forty documents name Shakespeare, and many other name his parents, his children, and his grandchildren. More facts are known about William Shakespeare than about any other playwright of the period except Ben Jonson. The facts should, however, be distinguished from the legends. The latter, inevitably more engaging and better known, tell us that the Stratford boy killed a calf in high style, poached deer and rabbits, and was forced to flee to London, where he held horses outside a playhouse. These traditions are only traditions; they may be true, but no evidence supports them, and it is well to stick to the facts.

Mary Arden, the dramatist’s mother, was the daughter of a substantial landowner; about 1557 she married John Shakespeare, who was a glove-maker and trader in various farm commodities. In 1557 John Shakespeare was a member of the Council (the governing body of Stratford), in 1558 a constable of the borough, in 1561 on of the two chamberlains, in 1565 an alderman (entitling him to the appellation “Mr.”), in 1568 high bailiff – the town’s highest political office, equivalent to mayor. After 1577, for an unknown reason he drops out of local politics. The birthday of William Shakespeare, the eldest son of this locally prominent man, is unrecorded; but the Stratford parish register records that the infant was baptized on 26 April 1564. (It is quite possible that he was born on 23 April, but this date has probably been assigned by tradition because it is the date on which, fifty-two years later, he died.) The attendance records of the Stratford grammar school are not extant, but it reasonable to assume that the son of a local official attended the school and received substantial training in Latin. The masters of the school from Shakespeare’s seventh to fifteenth years held Oxford degrees; the Elizabethan curriculum excluded mathematics and the natural sciences but taught a good deal of Latin rhetoric, logic, and literature. On 27 November 1582 a marriage license was issued to Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior.

Several years later Shakespeare went to London. It is not known how he broke into the London theatres as a dramatist and actor. By 1594 Shakespeare was a member of the company of actors known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. After the accession of James I, in 1603, the company would have the sovereign for their patron and would be known as the King’s Men. During the period of its greatest prosperity, this company would have as its principal theatres the Globe and the Black friars. Shakespeare was both an actor and a shareholder in the company. Tradition has assigned him such acting roles as Adam in As You Like It and the Ghost in Hamlet, a modest place on the stage that suggests he may have had other duties in the management of the company. Such conclusions, however, are based on surmise.

What is known well is that his plays were popular and that he was highly successful in his vocation. His first play may have been The Comedy of Errors, acted perhaps in 1591. The three parts of Henry VI were acted sometime between 1590 and 1592. Richard III probably dates from 1593. From this time onward, Shakespeare’s plays followed on the stage in rapid succession: Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King John, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2), Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, Julius Cæsar, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, The Merry Wives of Windsor, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, and nine others that followed before Shakespeare retired completely, about 1613.

William (I) the Conqueror (1028 – 87). The first Norman king of England (1066 – 87). Illegitimate son of Robert, duke of Normandy, he married his cousin Matilda of Flanders in 1053. They had four children: Robert, William, Henry, and Adela. William succeeded his father as duke of Normandy in 1035 but was not able to exert full control over his territories until 1047. He visited Edward the Confessor of England in 1051, when he was almost certainly promised the English throne. In 1066, with the backing of the papacy, William claimed his right and landed an invasion force at Pevensey, Sussex. He defeated and killed his rival, King Harold, at Hastings in October and then formally accepted the kingdom at Berkhamsted before being crowned in Westminster Abbey at Christmas Day. The Norman conquest was not, however, complete. William faced a number of English revolts during the years 1067 to 1071, which he effectively, if ruthlessly, crushed. Furthermore, the subjection of the new kingdom involved the introduction of Norman personnel and social organization (feudalism), as well as administrative and legal practices. The effect of the conquest on English culture was considerable. William’s reign witnessed reforms in the church under his trusted adviser Lanfranc, who became archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, and, most notably, the compilation of the Domesday Book (1086). William spent most of the last 15 years of his life in Normandy and died of an injury received while campaigning against Philip I of France. He was buried in St. Stephen’s church at Caen.

Wulfstan, St. (c. 1009 – 1095). Bishop of Worcester from 1062. Educated at Avesham and Peterborough. Wulfstan was the last of the Anglo-Saxon bishops. A supporter of William I, who allowed him to retain the bishopric, Wulfstan, although unlearned, was an excellent administrator and was also noted for his pastoral activities. He rebuilt Worcester cathedral and brought an end to the slave traffic at Bristol. Feast day: 19 Jan.

Wycliffe (or Wyclif), John (c. 1330 – 1384). Church reformer, who inspired the Lollards. Born in Yorkshire, he was educated in Oxford and became master of Balliol College in about 1360. In 1374 he was made rector of Lutterworth. In De dominio divino and De dominio civil (c. 1376) he argued that the church should not interfere in temporal affairs nor have temporal possessions. After the development of the great schism in the western church he attacked the claims to authority of the papacy and denied the doctrine of transubsantiation. He is best remembered for supervising the translation of the Bible into English.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Alliteration: the repetition of the initial consonant or vowel of words in sequence. Old English and Old Germanic poetry was alliterative in structure: the metricality of the poetic line was determined not by the number of syllables, rhyme, or classical metre, but by the number of alliterative words in stressed positions.

Analogy: the process by which certain grammatically or morphologically different words or expressions come to share the same form or pronunciation.

Analytic language: a language in which grammatical relationships among words in a sentence are determined by the order of the words in that sentence.

Anaphora: a term used in rhetoric to describe the repetition of a word or phrase, usually at the beginning of successive sentences or clauses.

Anglo-Saxons: the Germanic peoples who settled the British Isles beginning in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. and who spoke Old English. Conquered by the Normans in 1066, they were gradually absorbed into the Norman French-speaking population.

Argot: a distinctive way of writing or speaking, often characterized by a unique vocabulary used by a particular class, profession, or social group.

Articulatory phonetics: the study of how sounds are produced in the mouth, and the technique of accurately describing those sounds by using special symbols.

Aureate diction: use of an elaborate Latinate vocabulary used by English writers of the 15th and 16th centuries to evoke a highly “educated” tone in their language.

Back vowels: continuous sounds produced at the back of the mouth (see front vowels, high vowels).

Calque: a bit-by-bit, or morpheme-by-morpheme, translation of one word in one language into another word in another language, often used to avoid bringing new or loan words into the translating language.

Chancery English: the form of the English language developed in written documents of the 15th century in Chancery (the official writing centre of royal administration). Many grammatical forms and spelling conventions of Chancery English have become part of standard written English.

Cognate: two or more words from two or more different but related languages that share a common root or original.

Comparative philology: the study of different but related languages in their historical contexts, traditionally with the goal of reconstructing earlier, lost forms of words and sounds in the Indo-European languages.

Creole: a new language that develops out of the sustained contact among two or more languages. Often, creoles develop when the language of a colonizing or economically dominant group is imposed upon a subordinate or colonized group. Thus, many creoles have elements of both European and non-European languages. Creoles may emerge over time from pidgins. The basic difference is that creoles are perceived by the language speakers as the natural or native language, whereas pidgins are perceived as artificial or ad hoc arrangements for communication (see pidgin).

Deep structure: in the linguistic theory of Noam Chomsky and his followers, the mental or genetically encoded pattern of language communication in human beings (see surface structure; transformational-generative grammar).

Descriptivism: the belief that the study of language should describe the linguistic behavior of a group of speakers or writers at a given moment and should not be pressed into the service of prescribing how people should write or speak (see prescriptivism).

Determinative compounding: the process by which new nouns are created in a language by yoking together two normally independent nouns (e.g., earring). A key feature of the Germanic languages, especially Old English, it is the process by which many poetic compounds were formed in literature (e.g., Old English banlocan, is bone locker, or body).

Dialect: a variant form of a language, usually defined by region, class, or socioeconomic group and distinguished by its pronunciation, vocabulary, and on occasion, morphology.

Dialectology: the study of different regional variations of a given language, spoken or written at a given time.

Diphthongs: vowel sounds that are made up of two distinct sounds joined together.

Etymology: the systematic study of word origins, roots and changes. The etymology of a given word is its history, traced back through its various pronunciations and semantic shifts, until its earliest recorded or reconstructed root. A root is also known as an etymon.

Extension in function: the increase in the range of grammatical functions that a given word carries over time.

Extension in lexis: the increase in the range of meanings, often figurative, that a given word carries over time.

Eye dialect: a way of representing in writing regional or dialect variations by spelling words in nonstandard ways. Spellings such as sez or wanna are eye dialect forms; they do not actually record distinctions of speech but, rather, evoke the flavor of nonstandard language.

Front vowels: continuous sounds produced at the front of the mouth (see back vowels, high vowels).

Grammar: generally used to refer to the system of establishing verbal relationships in a given language; often confused with standards of “good usage” or “educated” speech.

Grammatical gender: the system by which nouns in a language carry special endings or require distinctive pronoun, adjective, and article forms. Described as masculine, feminine, and neuter.

Great Vowel Shift: the systematic shift in the pronunciation of stressed, long vowels in English, which occurred from the middle of the 15th century to the middle of the 16th century in England and permanently changed the pronunciation of the English language. It effectively marks the shift from Middle English to Modern English.

Grimm’s Law: a set of relationships among the consonants of the Germanic and non-Germanic Indo-European languages, first codified and published by Jakob Grimm in 1822.

High vowels: continuous sounds produced at the top of the mouth (see front vowels, back vowels).

Homonymy: the state in which two or more words of different origin and meaning come to be pronounced in the same way.

Indo-European: the term used to describe the related languages of Europe, India, and Iran, which are believed to have descended from a common tongue spoken in roughly the 3rd millennium B.C. by an agricultural peoples originating in southeastern Europe. English is a member of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.

Inkhorn terms: words from Latin or Romance languages, often polysyllabic and of arcane scientific or aesthetic resonance, coined and introduced into English in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Lexicography: the practice of making dictionaries.

Lexis: the vocabulary resources of a given language.

Metathesis: the reversing of two sounds in a sequence, occasionally a case of mispronunciation but also occasionally a historical change in pronunciation.

Middle English: the language, in its various dialects, spoken by the inhabitants of England from roughly the period following the Norman Conquest (the late 11th century) until roughly the period of completion of the Great Vowel Shift (the early 16th century).

Modern English: the language, in its various dialects, that emerged after the end of the Great Vowel Shift, roughly in the middle of the 16th century.

Monophthongs: vowel sounds that are made up of only one continuously produced sound (e.g., the sound in the Modern English word feet).

Morpheme: a set of one or more sounds in a language that, taken together, make up a unique, meaningful part of a word (e.g., “-ly” is the morpheme indicating manner of action, as in quickly or slowly; “-s” is a morpheme indicating plurality, as in dogs).

Morphology: the study of the forms of words that determine relationships of meaning in a sentence in a given language. Includes such issues as case endings in nouns, formation of tenses in verbs, and so on.

Old English: the language, or group of related dialects, spoken by the Anglo-Saxon people in England from the earliest recorded documents (late 7th century) until roughly the end of the 11th century.

Periphrastic: a term that refers to a roundabout way of doing something; used in grammar to describe a phrase or idiom that uses new words or more words than necessary to express grammatical relationship.

Philology: the study of language generally but now often restricted to the historical study of changes in phonology, morphology, grammar, and lexis. Comparative philology is the term used to describe the method of comparing surviving forms of words from related languages to reconstruct older, lost forms.

Phoneme: an individual sound that, in contrast with other sounds, contributes to the set of meaningful sounds in a given language. A phoneme is not simply a sound but, rather, a sound that is meaningful (e.g., “b” and “p” are phonemes in English because their difference determines two different meaningful words: bit and pit, for example).

Phonetics: the study of the pronunciation of sounds of a given language by speakers of that language.

Phonology: the study of the system of sounds of a given language.

Pidgin: a language that develops to allow two mutually unintelligible groups of speakers to communicate. Pidgins are often ad hoc forms of communication, and they are perceived as artificial by both sets of speakers. Over time, a pidgin may develop into a creole (see creole).

Polysemy: the state in which one word comes to connote several, often very different, meanings.

Prescriptivism: the belief that the study of language should lead to certain prescriptions or rules of advice for speaking and writing (see descriptivism).

Regionalism: an expression in a given language that is unique to a given geographical area and is not characteristic of the language as a whole.

Semantic change: the change in the meaning of a word over time.

Slang: a colloquial form of expression in a language, usually relying on words or phrases drawn from popular culture, particular professions, or the idioms of particular groups (defined, for example, by age or class).

Sociolinguistics: the study of the place of language in society, often centering on distinctions of class, regional dialect, race, and gender in communities of speakers and writers.

Strong verb: in the Germanic languages, a verb that indicates change in tense by changing the root vowel: e.g., think, thought; drink, drank, drunk; bring, brought; run, ran (see weak verb).

Structural linguistics: the discipline of studying language in America in the first half of the 20th century, characterized by close attention to the sounds of languages, by a rigorous empirical methodology, and by awareness of the marked differences in the structures of languages. The term is often used to characterize the work of Edward Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield.

Surface structure: in the linguistic theory of Noam Chomsky and his followers, the actual forms of a given language, uttered by speakers of that language, that are produced by the rules of that language and are generated out of the deep structures innate in the minds of humans.

Syntax: the way in which a language arranges its words to make well-formed or grammatical utterances.

Synthetic language: a language in which grammatical relationships among words in a sentence are determined by the inflections (for example, case endings) added to the words.

Transformational-generative grammar: the theory of language developed by Noam Chomsky and his followers which argues that all human beings have the ability to speak a language and that deep-structure patterns of communication are transformed, or generated, into surface structures of a given language by a set of rules unique to each language. Presumes that language ability is an innate idea in humans (see deep structure, surface structure).

Weak verb: in the Germanic languages, a verb that indicates change in tense by adding a suffix, usually in “-ed”: e.g., walk, walked; love, loved.