THE UK
1.1Flags and National Symbols
The English flag is the St. George's Cross, a
thin red cross on a white field. A red cross acted as a symbol for many Crusaders in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD. It became associated with Saint George, and England claimed him as their patron saint, along with other countries such as Georgia, Russia and the Republic of Genoa, using his cross as a banner.
This flag remained in national use until 1707, when the Union Flag (which English and Scottish ships had used at sea since 1606) was adopted for all purposes to unite the whole of Great Britain under a common flag.
Themostimportantna-tional symbol is the Lions of Anjou. The three lions were first used by Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) in the late twelfth century. Many historians feel that the Three Lions are the true symbol of England.
They are shown in their heraldic form left and as they appear on the crest of the English National football team right.
Alternative names sometimes used for England have included the slang "Blighty", from the Hindustani "bila yati" meaning "foreign"; and "Albion," an ancient name popularised by Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy in the 1st century, supposedly in reference to the white (Latin alba) cliffs of Dover. (In its origins, however, the name applied to the whole island of Great Britain.) More poetically, England has been called "this scept'red isle...this other Eden" and "this Green and Pleasant Land", quotations respectively from the poetry of William Shakespeare (in "Richard II") and William Blake ("And did those feet in ancient time").
Slang terms sometimes used for the English include "Sassenachs" (from the Scots Gaelic and used by the Scots) and "Limeys" used by Americans, in reference to the citrus fruits carried aboard English sailing vessels to prevent scurvy, and "Les Rosbifs" used by the French, as the English traditionally eat a lot of Roast Beef.
"God Save The Queen" is the national anthem for the UK as a whole, but England does not have an official anthem of its own. "Jerusalem" (incorporating the Blake phrase quoted above) and "Land of Hope and Glory" are all widely regarded - unofficially - as English national hymns (although the last more properly refers to Great Britain, not just England).
English and British symbols often overlap at sporting events. "God Save The Queen" is played for the England football team, although Land of Hope and Glory has been used as the English anthem at the Commonwealth Games (where the four nations in the UK face each other independently).
1.1.1 Physical Geography-England covers 130,395 sq. km, with London on latitude 51° 30' (Kyiv is on 50° 25'). •
Much of the terrain of England is gently rolling hills, although there is one major range of hills, the Pennines, that passes between Leeds and Manchester. The highest peak is not part of that range - Scafell Pike at 978m in the Lake District, one of England's seven National Parks.
Although renowned for having a mild, damp climate throughout the year, the highest temperature ever recorded in England was 38.5° on August 10, 2003 in Kent. Snow is relatively rare in the south of England and any at all causes traffic chaos, but normal in the north of the country.
The sea gap to France is 34 km. The Channel Tunnel near Dover links England to Europe.
ENGLAND
Human Geography and Demographics
England is both the most populous and the most ethnically diverse nation in
the United Kingdom with around 49 million inhabitants, of which about a quarter live in the greater London area. There are 24m male and 25m female inhabitants. 90.7 % were born in the UK. Roughly a tenth are from non-white ethnic groups.
The population of England is mostly made up of, and descended from, immigrants who have arrived over millennia. The principal waves of migration have been in:
c. 600 BC Celts
55 BC-400 AD the Roman period (garrison soldiers from throughout the Empire)
350-550 Angles, Saxons, jutes
800-900 Vikings, Danes
1066 Normans
1650-1750 European refugees and Huguenots
1880-1940 jews
1950-1985 Caribbeans, Africans, South Asians
1985- citizens of the European Community member states, East Europeans,
Kurds, refugees.
The general prosperity of England has also made it a destination for economic migrants particularly from Ireland and Scotland. This diverse ethnic mix continues to create a diverse and dynamic language that is widely used internationally.
England has 39 "traditional counties" which are not equivalent to contemporary local government territories. See 4.1.2 below for details. These counties came from the Shires that were formed after the various Kingdoms, (such as Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria and Kent), that made up the Territory of England, were assimilated into one united Kingdom. The first shires were created by the Anglo-Saxons in what is now England and south eastern Scotland. Shires were controlled by a royal official known as a "shire reeve" or sheriff.
From Anglo-Saxon times, from about the 7th century to the late 19th century, the original "shires" all gradually became Counties as the boundaries were moved with changes in population and demographic profiles. Simply, a County was made up of Hundreds, which themselves were made up of Tithings.
A hundred is an administrative division which historically was used to divide a larger region into smaller geographical units. The name is derived from the number hundred. It was a traditional Germanic system described as early as AD 98 by Tacitus. In England a hundred was the division of a shire for administrative, military and judicial purposes under the common law. Originally, when introduced by the Saxons between 613 and 1017, a hundred was supposed to contain approximately one hundred households headed by a hundred-man or hundred eolder. He was responsible for administration, justice, and supplying military troops, as well as leading its forces. Hundreds were further divided into Tithings which contained ten households.
Counties were formed from Shires when the number of households in an area was counted and aggregated. Although later some counties had an Earl or a Duke allocated to them, they were never feudal territories ruled by a "Count" as the British has never even had the title "Count". The concept of a "rpacb" ruling a "rpachcTBo" was a common misconception. The translation of "County" must be "o6/iacTi>".
Some of the traditional counties had major subdivisions. Of these, the most important were the three ridings of Yorkshire - the East Riding, West Riding and
North Riding. Since Yorkshire was so big, its ridings became established as geographic terms quite apart from their role as administrative divisions.
The phrase Home Counties is often used: it is a semi-archaic name for the English counties bordering London. These were originally Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, and Essex. However, although Middlesex still exists as a postal address, most of the county itself has long since been absorbed into Greater London.
1.1.3 London
London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. Its core area is 1,579 square km with a population of 7.2 million, administered by 32 Borough Councils as Greater London County. However as any visitor sees, it is an indeterminate area of around 12 million, taking into account the areas of the Home Counties that merge into the capital. This makes it exceptional if only for the reason that a quarter of the population of England is in this densely populated area. In 2004 a "metropolitan area" was defined by the Greater London local government that is not yet approved by central government, which incorporates an area that has a population of 18m.
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The City of London or "Square Mile" is the financial centre of London, home to banks, brokers, insurers and legal and accounting firms. A second financial district is developing at Canary Wharf to the east of central London. This is much smaller than the City of London, but has equally prestigious occupants, including the global headquarters of HSBC Bank.
A street in the City right
There are four airports in London, Heathrow, London City Airport, Biggin Hill, and Northolt.
Of these, Heathrow is the city's principal airport and is also a major international hub. It is currently the busiest international terminal in the world, and a fifth terminal is being built on the site, with a sixth being planned. In 2003 Heathrow was the busiest airport of Europe in terms of total passenger traffic, handling 53.8m passengers.
British Airways at Heathrow left
Other airports, such as London Gatwick Airport, London Luton Airport, and London Stansted Airport incorporate "London" into their name, but the towns where they are situated lie some distance from London.
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There are 35 road, rail and foot bridges over the River Thames in London, 18 of them being major road bridges. The oldest is London Bridge, the first version being built about 2000 years ago. A series of London Bridges were then built, each wider and stronger until a major bridge was built by the engineer John Rennie for 2 million pounds, the equivalent of billions today and opened in 1831. It needed to be replaced in the 1960s and was sold for 2.5m USD to an American casino owner in 1968 and shipped to Arizona, where it now stands. It has always been believed that the proud new owner thought he was buying Tower Bridge. Nevertheless, Rennie's London Bridge today is the second most popular tourist attraction in Arizona after the Grand Canyon.
Tower Bridge itself is London's most dramatic river crossing and a world landmark. It is so called as it is very close to the Tower of London. Alternative designs were fiercely debated over for 8 years until work started on the present design in 1886. It took another 8 years to build and is a opening steel bridge with the steel end constructions each clad in a mock Victorian Gothic tower.
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Tower Bridge right
London hosts several festivals, fairs and carnivals throughout the year. The most famous is the Notting Hill Carnival, one of the world's largest carnivals. The carnival takes place over the August bank holiday weekend, and attracted almost 2 million people in 2004.
2 London policemen - "Bobbies" - at the carnival left
It has a distinctly Afro-Caribbean flavour, and highlights include a competition between London's steel bands (modelled on the steel bands of Jamaica and the Caribbean) and a 5 km-long street parade with dancing to music.
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A dramatic costume in August 2004 right
London is full of historic buildings - one of the most interesting to visit is Westminster Abbey which is crammed full of the tombs of personalities from world history over the past thousand years.
Used for the coronation of almost every monarch since 1066, the Abbey has not only Kings, Queens and major political and religious figures buried there, but also a number of major literary and scientific figures, such as Chaucer, Dickens, Newton and Darwin.
The earlist chapel dates back to 616, although the main part of the Abbey was built in the Gothic style in 1245-1517. The two west towers, frequently photographed, were built by Sir Christopher Wren in the 18th century. The north entrance dating from the 13th century is shown left.
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Less popular but also important is the Prime Meridian, the meridian (line of longitude) passing through the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Greenwich, London; it is the meridian at which longitude is 0 degrees. It is sometimes referred to as the Greenwich Meridian.
The meridian was agreed upon in October 1884 when the British Empire was so important that two-thirds of the world's sea traffic used London as their reference point on maps. Greenwich Mean Time is also a reference point to this day.
The actual meridian point right
One of the central squares of London is Trafalgar Square where many Londoners greet the New Year. The National Gallery (of Art) is on the square and Leicester Square is very close by.
Nelson's Column left is in the centre of the square, surrounded by fountains and four huge bronze lions sculpted by Sir Edwin Landseer; the metal used is said to have been recycled from the cannons of the French fleet. The column is topped by a statue of Lord Nelson, the admiral who commanded the British Fleet at Trafalgar.
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Piccadilly Circus is a circular "square" or perhaps better, an area and traffic intersection, in the City of Westminster, near Soho and the main theatre district known as the "West End". It is renowned for its video display and neon signs in the northwestern corner and the Shaftesbury memorial fountain topped by the statue of Eros, to the southwest.
Visitors from many countries regard Eros as being in the very centre of London and it is a popular meeting place.
Picadilly Circus right
Britain is roughly equally divided on the question of whether there should still be a monarchy and a royal Head of State. The royals, their property and their associated ceremonies are undeniably a major tourist attraction.
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Buckingham Palace is the official London residence of the Queen and the largest "working" royal palace remaining in the world. The palace was built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 but bought by George III in 1762 as a private residence.
A tourist's view of the palace left
Tourists (and residents) see the sights, but rarely notice that London sees them. In Britain there are about 4.5 million closed-circuit television (CCTV) cam-
eras, which record continually and are referred to in the event of crime or other such reason.
Approximately a third of these are in Greater London and it was estimated in 2003 that a person in London could be seen on 300 different cameras each day. A series of Privacy Acts have been passed although these concentrate on the exclusion of CCTV from "private" locations.
Right is shown a CCTV camera on the London Underground or "tube", prominently showing the famous logo.
1.3 History
1.3.1 Pre-Roman England
Archeological remains have been uncovered dating back to about 8500 BC, but it is from just before Neolithic times that structures date.
One of the best known is Stone-henge, right, dating from 3100 BC, when construction began. It is to the north of
Salisbury in the South of England, not far from the massive stone circles at Avebury older still and so large that a village was built within the inner circle. Many of the stones at Stonehenge were brought from 380 km away. The largest stones, however, up to 45 tons, came from a quarry 32 km away. Almost nothing is known about the cultures that built these stone circles.
1.3.2 Roman Britain
The Romans, led by Julius Caesar, landed, in 55 and 54 BC, in the part of the island of Great Britain which was later to become South East England. Nevertheless, they did not come as conquerors at that time. It was only a century later, in 43 AD, under the emperor Claudius, that the Romans occupied England. In order to protect themselves from the Picts, the inhabitants of Scotland at that time, the
Romans under the emperor Hadrian had a wall built from east to west, Hadrian's Wall, to defend their southern British provinces and mark the boundary between England and Scotland, as they were to become later.
The Romans constructed a highly effective internal infrastructure to underpin their military occupation, building long, straight roads the length and breadth of the country, most of which centred on Londinium (the Roman name for London). Many viaducts and aquaducts still remain across England, along with the Roman city walls of Chester, York and others.
The indigenous, mostly Celtic population were suppressed with efficiency, although numerous, and often extremely bloody, uprisings occurred all through their occupation. The most notable uprising was that of the Iceni (and other tribes) led by Boudicca, or "Boadicea," in 61-62 AD.
Tradition tells that all of south east Britain came to her side, ready to die for the Queen who was fierce enough to take on the Roman Empire. It's noteworthy that tribes which remained loyal to the Romans were not spared Boudicca's anger and were slaughtered. Boudicca won several battles, including taking the largest Roman town of Colchester, before losing at London, which subsequently took over the role of the capital of Roman Britain from Colchester.
The statue of Boudicca by London's Westminster Bridge right
One strong legend is that Boudicca is buried below what is today platform 10 at London's Kings Cross railway station, which may have influenced JK Rowling to make the Hogwart's stop in the Harry Potter books platform 9 3A at that station.
The Romans held England for almost four centuries, never venturing much into Wales and kept out of Scotland by the Picts, before their presence weakened and by the 5th century they had left.
1.3.3 The Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Vikings and the Dark Ages
The Dark Ages were times when history was oral, and the local Celts and the Anglo-Saxon and Viking invaders all used songs, sagas and oral poetry to record and retell events. Much became lost; of what remains, there is a complex mix of history, legend and myth, King Arthur and his knights being just one example of inadequate historical source evidence.
What is now England was progressively settled by successive, and often complementary waves of Germanic tribesmen. Among them were the Angles, Saxons and Jutes together with many other tribes who had been partly displaced on mainland Europe. Increasingly the Celtic population was pushed westwards and northwards. The settlement of England (alternately, the invasion of England) is known as the Saxon Conquest or the Anglo-Saxon settlement.
In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577, the Celtic people of Southern Britain were separated into the South-West nation of Cornwall and Devon and the Welsh by the advancing Saxons.
Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England.
The Saxons founded a settlement beside the River Sheaf, (later to become Sheffield in South Yorkshire) and it was near there that Egbert of Wessex received the submission of Earned of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.
Having started with plundering raids, the Vikings later began to settle in England and trade, eventually ruling the Danelaw from the late 9th century. There are many traces of Vikings in England today, for instance many words in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing. The major Viking settlement was in York, capital of the Kingdom of York.
The shaded area left shows the Danelaw, together with the areas of the four major Kingdoms of England: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex and East Anglia. There were also many other minor kingdoms.
The Kingdoms were powerful institutions and were characterised by many personalities recorded by history, but usually only after the record-keeping Normans took over, so much of their history is debatable.
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1.3.4 The Norman Invasion
The Normans were Viking and Slav settlers in France who had become the ruling elite, displacing the Gallic and Celtic tribes of France from power. A long series of disputes between the Normans and the English resulted in the invasion of England.
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The defeat of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 at the hands of William of Normandy, later styled William I of England and the subsequent Norman takeover of Saxon, Celtic and Viking England led to a major turning-point in the history of the small, isolated, island state.
The tapestry kept at Bayeux in France records the invasion. A small section is shown right.
The Normans kept written records and recorded all aspects of life in England. In 1086 William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes. This remains the most comprehensive survey of a country in medieval Europe.
The Normans also built in stone: in the 11th and 12th centuries, many hundreds of small churches were built across England and most not only still stand, but remain in use.
The Norman church left is in the village of Stoneleigh, near Coventry and is very typical of a church and churchyard in England.
The English Middle Ages were to be characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite.
At the same time, a ruling elite was being formed in England that began in the 13th century to move England away from a feudal system ruled by an autocratic monarch to the beginnings of democracy. Simon de Montfort was instrumental in forming the first English Parliament in 1265, as commemorated on the British stamps above, showing the original parliamentary seal and the first House of Parliament next to Westminster Abbey in London.
1.3.5 Norman and Other English Castles
The Normans, after the Conquest, began to build castles in stone, using the standard features of castle walls and other defensive features include towers as part of the walls, moats, battlements, drawbridges and a portcullis.
By their very nature they were very permanent structures and many survive through to the modern day; they are considered monuments and almost all the 200 surviving major castles are open to the public.
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Generally, a Castle is a fortress, an enclosed camp or any logical development of a fortified enclosure. Castles have been crucial to many episodes of England's history.
The very earliest are prehistoric earthworks where wooden buildings were defended but no structural remains survive of any such castle built before the 10th century.
There are many theories that Ca-dbury Castle right in Dorset was the Camelot of Arthurian legend, although the original site of Tintagel dates back to the same era.
As the size of local communities grew, it became necessary to provide both a larger and stronger fortification, which would provide for a very strong perimeter defence of castle walls together with lodgings (Keep) suitable for a King, Earl or Duke and lower grade housing within the walls to accommodate some of the key population of the local area.
In later years, castles became more stately homes than fortresses. Although many fortifications remained they increasingly became decorative rather than protective.
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Warwick Castle. Legend has it that the first fortifications of significance at Warwick castle were erected by Ethelfleda, daughter of King Alfred the Great in the year 914. These almost certainly replaced even older wooden fortifications, and were part of a network of fortifications built to protect the Kingdom of Mercia.
After the Norman conquest William the Conqueror appointed Henry de Ne-wburgh as Earl of Warwick, and he proceeded to enlarge the site and created a Norman motte-and-bailey castle, work continuing for the next 180 years.
Warwick left is said to be the best preserved castle in Britain.
The Tower of London is officially named Her Majesty's Palace and Fortress, The Tower of London, although the last ruler to reside in it as a palace was King James I (1566-1625).
In 1078, William the Conqueror ordered the White Tower to be built, as much to protect the Normans from the people of the City of London as to protect London from anyone else. Earlier forts there, including the Roman one, had primarily wooden buildings, but William ordered his tower to be of stone that he had specially imported from France. It was King Richard the Lionheart who had the moat dug around the surrounding wall and filled with water from the Thames.
The White Tower, shown right, is actually in
the middle of a complex of several buildings along
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the River Thames in London, which have served as fortress, armoury, treasury, mint, palace, place of execution, public records office, observatory, refuge, and prison, particularly for "upper class" prisoners." Elizabeth I was imprisoned for a time in the Tower during her sister Mary's reign; the last known use of the Tower as a prison was during World War II, for Rudolf Hess.
Windsor Castle is, along with Buckingham Palace in nearby London, one of the principal official residences of the British monarch, who always stays there at Easter and during "Royal Ascot" week in June, the Ascot Racecourse being not far; as well as for various weekend retreats throughout the year. It is the largest occupied castle in the world, and among the oldest.
It was also originally built by William the Conqueror to act as a line of defence for London and has since had many additions and improvements. King Edward III made its St. George's Chapel the home of the Order of the Garter in 1348. Today the inhabited wing of the castle mostly dates to within the last two centuries, much of it built under George IV.
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