England

From Metapedia

England is the largest and most populous constituent country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is located to the north-west of mainland Europe. Its inhabitants account for more than 82% of the total population of the United Kingdom, whilst the mainland territory of England occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west. Elsewhere, it is bordered by the North Sea, Irish Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and English Channel.

England became a unified state during the 10th century and takes its name from the Angles, one of a number of Germanic tribes who settled in the territory during the 5th and 6th centuries. The capital city of England is London, which is the largest city in Great Britain, and the largest city in the European Union by most, but not all, measures.

England ranks amongst the world's most influential and far-reaching centers of white cultural development. It is the place of origin of both the English language and the Church of England, and English law forms the basis of the legal systems of many countries: in addition, the nation was the historic center of the British Empire, and was also the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. England was the first country in the world to become industrialized. England is home to the Royal Society, which laid the foundations of modern experimental science. England was the world's first parliamentary democracy and consequently many constitutional, governmental and legal innovations that had their origin in England have been widely adopted by other nations.

The Kingdom of England was a separate state until 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union resulted in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 3 England Before the English : Britannia 4 Conquest of Celtic Britain 5 England and the Middle Ages 6 Tudor England 7 Politics 8 Geography 9 Economics 10 Demographics 11 Inventions and Intellectual Pioneers 12 External links

[edit] Etymology

England is named after the Angles, the largest of a number of Germanic Tribes who settled in England in the fifth and sixth centuries, and who are believed to have originated in the peninsula of Angeln, in modern-day northern Germany. (The further etymology of this tribe's name remains uncertain, although a popular theory holds that it need be sought no further than the word angle itself, and refers to a fish-hook-shaped region of Holstein.)

The Angles' name has had a variety of different spellings. The earliest known reference to these people is under the Latinised version Anglii used by Tacitus in chapter 40 of his Germania, written around 98 AD. He gives no precise indication of their geographical position within Germania, but states that, together with six other tribes, they worshipped a goddess named Nerthus, whose sanctuary was situated on "an island in the Ocean."

The early 8th century historian Bede, in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), refers to the English people as Angelfolc (in English) or Angli (in Latin).

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known usage of "England" referring the southern part of the island of Great Britain was in 897, with the modern spelling first used in 1538.

[edit] History

England is the largest and most populous of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom. The division dates from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century. The territory of England has been politically united since the 10th century. This article concerns that geographic region. However, before the 10th century and after the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603, it becomes less logical to distinguish Scottish and Welsh from English history since the union of these nations with England.

[edit] England Before the English : Britannia

Archaeological evidence indicates that what was southern old Britannia was colonized by humans long before the rest of the British Isles due to its more hospitable climate between and during the various ice ages of the distant past. The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the 6th century BC, although cultural and trade links with the continent had existed for millennia prior to this. Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his trading journey to the island around 325 BC. Later writers such as Pliny the Elder (quoting Timaeus) and Diodorus Siculus (probably drawing on Poseidonius) mention the tin trade from southern Britain but there is little further historical detail of the people who lived there. Tacitus wrote that there was no great difference in language between the people of, what was southern Britannia and northern Gaul and noted that the various nations of Britons shared physical characteristics with their continental neighbours. Julius Caesar visited southern Britain in 55 and 54 BC and wrote in De Bello Gallico that the population of southern Britannia was extremely large and shared much in common with the other highly civilised Celtic nations on the continent. Coin evidence and the work of later Roman historians have provided the names of some of the rulers of the disparate tribes and their machinations in what was Britannia.

From the Earliest Pre-history up until the Roman Conquest of Britain, Britain's British population was relatively stable. There is ongoing fierce academic debate about when and how that population began speaking Celtic languages (see the article on Celts for a much more in depth discussion), but at least by the time of Julius Ceaser's invasion, the British population of what was old Britain was speaking a Celtic language generally thought to be the forerunner of the modern Gaelic languages. The Romans set up a series of colonies in what was old Britannia and - despite several notable rebellions - held onto the southern part of the island until about 410. The Northern boundaries of Roman control are the precursors of the modern boundaries between modern England and its Celtic neighbours - Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall.

Surprisingly few historical sources describe Roman Britain. For example, we have only one sentence describing the reasons for the construction of Hadrians Wall. The Claudian invasion itself is well attested and Tacitus included the uprising of Boudica, or "Boadicea", in 61 AD in his history. Following the end of the 1st century, however, Roman historians only mention fragments of information from the distant province. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 5th century Roman influence had all but disappeared, opening the way for new power struggles between "Romanized" Britons, the Gaelic and Welsh speaking populations that had remained outside the areas of Roman control, and new waves of Germanic invaders from Germany.

[edit] Conquest of Celtic Britain

In the wake of the Romans, who had abandoned the south of the island by about 410 in order to concentrate on difficulties closer to home, present day England was progressively settled by successive and often complementary waves of Germanic tribesmen.

The prevailing view is that waves of Germanic Barbarian and Pagan tribes, Jutes together with larger numbers of Frisians and Saxons from north-western Germany, and Angles from what is now Schleswig-Holstein - commonly known as Anglo-Saxons - who had been partly displaced on mainland Europe, invaded Britain in the mid 5th century and again around the middle of the 6th century. They came under military leaders and settled at first on the eastern shores. They are believed to have fought their way westward, looking for more land to cultivate, taking lowland and leaving less desirable lands in the hills to the Celtic Britons.

Professors John Davies and A.W. Wade-Evans believe that the Saxons did not sweep away the entire population of the Celtic Britons in the areas they overran, as was supposed by 19th century historians. Population estimates based on the size and density of settlements put Britain's population at about 3.5 million by the time Romans invaded in A.D. 43. Some historians now believe subsequent Germanic invaders from mainland Europe had little genetic impact on the British.

For the English, their defining period was the arrival of Germanic tribes known collectively as the Anglo-Saxons. Some researchers suggest this invasion may have consisted of as few as 12,000 to 28,000 people — not enough to displace existing inhabitants. However, the latest genetic studies, by Oxford's Bryan Sykes, of the modern British population suggests an intermediate situation, with around 60% or more of Britons remaining in England, the figure increasing from east to west. The reason for this relatively high ratio of Saxons in the modern population may be due to Viking age immigrants, a higher reproductive rate.

Analysis of human remains unearthed at an ancient cemetery near Abingdon, England, indicates that Saxon immigrants and native Britons lived side-by-side. David Miles, research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology has said: "Probably what we're dealing with is a majority of British people who were dominated politically by a new elite. ... They were swamped culturally but not genetically". Simon James writes: "It is actually quite common to observe important cultural change, including adoption of wholly new identities, with little or no biological change to a population".

Increasingly, the British-Roman population (the Britons) was assimilated, a process enabled by a lack of clear unity amongst the British people against a unified armed foe, and the culture pushed westwards and northwards. The settlement (or invasion) of what was later to become known as England is known as the Saxon Conquest or the Anglo-Saxon (sometimes "English") Conquest.

In approximately 495, at the Battle of Mount Badon (Latin Mons Badonicus, Welsh Mynydd Baddon) possibly at Badbury Rings near the Roman Porchester-Poole road,[citation needed] Britons inflicted a severe defeat on an invading Anglo-Saxon army which halted the westward Anglo-Saxon advance for a long period. While it was a major political and military event of the 5th and 7th centuries in Britain, there is no certainty about who commanded the opposing forces. This victory made it possible to halt the Saxon invasion and secured a long period of peace for Celtic Britain.

The earliest source does not name the commanders of the opposing forces, but by the 9th century the victory was attributed to King Arthur. The 8th century Historia Brittonum records traditions that name the Romano-British / Celtic leader as Arthur. An old Welsh poem ascribed to Taliesin (who lived in the last half of the 6th century), refers to "the battle of Badon with Arthur, chief giver of feasts… the battle which all men remember". In that sort of society, "chief giver of feasts" implies supreme leader. Gildas writes "ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis ... quique quadragesimus quartus ut novi orditur annus mense iam uno emenso qui et meae nativitatis est", which has been translated in more than one way. It may mean "at/to the year of the siege of Mount Badon ... which happened 44 years and one month ago, and which is [the year] of my birth".

King Maelgwn of Gwynedd was still living when Gildas wrote this, therefore Gildas wrote this on or before 547. This suggests the date 503 or shortly before for the battle. Bede treated this passage as saying that the battle was 44 years after the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain (which he said was in 449). Adding 44 years to 449 gives the date 493 for the battle. Adding 43 years to 43 (when Thanet was conceded to Hengist) gives the date 491 for the battle. Some would argue that Bede's copy of Gildas was much closer to Gildas's time than any extant; however, the age of a manuscript (especially one no longer existing) is no guide to its accuracy. However uncertain the place, date, or participants of this battle may be, it clearly halted the Anglo-Saxon advance for some years.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is silent about this battle, but documents a gap of almost 70 years between two major Anglo-Saxon leaders (Bretweldas) in the fifth and sixth centuries. Procoppius records a story, told to him by a member of a diplomatic delegation from the Franks, including a group of Angles, which included that some Anglo-Saxons and British found their island so crowded that they migrated into northern Gaul to find lands to live on. There are other tales from the mid-6th century about groups of Anglo-Saxons leaving Britain to settle across the English Channel. All of these point to some kind of reversal in the fortunes of the invading Anglo-Saxons.

Archaeological evidence collected from the cemeteries of the pagan Anglo-Saxons suggests that some of their settlements were abandoned and the frontier between the invaders and the native inhabitants pushed back some time around 500. The Anglo-Saxons held the present counties of Kent, Sussex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and around the Humber; it is clear that the native British controlled everything west of a line drawn from the mouth of the Wiltshire Avon at Christchurch north to the river Trent, then along the Trent to where it joined the Humber, and north along the river Derwent and then east to the North Sea, and an enclave to the north and west of London, and south of Verulamium (near St. Albans), that stretched west to join with the main frontier. The Britons defending this pocket could securely move their troops along Watling Street to bring reinforcements to London or Verulamium, and thus keep the invaders divided into pockets south of the Weald, in eastern Kent, and in the lands around the Wash.

In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577 between the West Saxons and the Britons, the British people of Southern Britain were separated into the West Welsh (Cornwall, Devon Dorset and Somerset) and the Welsh by the advancing Saxons. Deorham is usually taken to refer to Dyrham in Gloucestershire. The battle was promptly followed by the Saxon occupation of three cities: Cirencester (Corinium), probably a provincial capital in the Roman period; Gloucester (Glevum), a former legionary fortress and a colonia; and Bath (Aquae Sulis), a renowned pagan religious centre and spa city. However, their advance southwestward was held up for about a hundred years, until the battle of Peonnam, and was not complete until the 10th century. Though there were some gains towards Wales, it remained largely independent from the Saxons.

The remains of many villas are found in the vicinity of these cities, implying that the area was wealthy as well as relatively sophisticated: it must be inferred that this Saxon advance was a significant blow to the Britons. The battle is also considered by some to be decisive since it drove a land wedge between the Britons of what was to become Wales and those in the southwest peninsula. It has however been objected that, though the battle may have had an impact on large-scale movements, the passage of Welsh-speaking individuals was evidently not impossible: a Welsh genealogy appears to record that, in the 7th century, the descendants of kings of Pengwern founded a dynasty in the Glastonbury region. It would not have been difficult to make such a journey by boat. In fact, archaeology suggests that, although the Anglo-Saxons quickly took over the Cirencester region after the battle, it took some time for them to colonise Bath and Gloucester.

From the 4th century AD, many Britons had migrated across the English Channel from Wales, Cornwall and southern Britain, with their chiefs, soldiers, families, monks and priests, and started to settle and colonise the western part (Armorica) of Gaul (France) where they founded a new nation: Brittany. The immigrant Britons gave their new country its current name and contributed to the Breton language, Brezhoneg, a sister language to Welsh and Cornish. The name "Brittany" (from "Little Britain") arose at this time to distinguish the new Britain from "Great Britain". Brezhoneg (the British language) is still spoken in Brittany in 2007. Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England.

At Dore (now a suburb of the City of Sheffield) Egbert of Wessex received the submission of Eanred of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.

After a time of plunder and raids, the Vikings began to settle in England and trade, eventually ruling the Danelaw from the late 9th century. One Viking settlement was in York, called Jorvik by the Vikings. Viking rule left significant traces in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing.

The principal legacy left behind in those territories where it is agreed that significant numbers of Britons remained is that of toponyms. Most of the place-names in Cornwall, and some in Cumberland and Westmorland, and in other pockets, are Brythonic in origin, as are the names of most former Romano-British cities, including London, Dorchester, Dover, and Colchester. A few place-name elements, referring to physical features, are thought to be Brythonic in origin, such as bre - and tor for hills, carr for a high rocky place, and coombe for a small deep valley (a rare example of a Brythonic word that had been borrowed into Old English).

Until recently it has been believed that those areas settled by the Anglo-Saxons were uninhabited at the time or the Britons had fled before them. However, genetic studies suggest that the British were not pushed out to the Celtic fringes but many tribes remained in what was to become England.

[edit] England and the Middle Ages

The defeat of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 at the hands of William II of Normandy, later styled William the Conqueror of England, and the subsequent Norman takeover of Saxon England led to a sea-change in the history of the small, isolated, island state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes.

William ruled over Normandy, then a powerful duchy in France. William and his nobles spoke and conducted court in Norman French, in Normandy as well as in England. The use of the Anglo-Norman language by the aristocracy endured for centuries and left an indelible mark in the development of modern English.

The English Middle Ages were to be characterized by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite. England was more than self-sufficient in cereals, dairy products, beef and mutton. The nation's international economy was based on the wool trade, in which the produce of the sheepwalks of northern England was exported to the textile cities of Flanders, where it was worked into cloth. Medieval foreign policy was as much shaped by relations with Flemish textile industry as it was by dynastic adventures in western France. An English textile industry was established in the fifteenth century, providing the basis for rapid English capital accumulation.

The English Middle Ages were to be characterized by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite. England was more than self-sufficient in cereals, dairy products, beef and mutton. The nation's international economy was based on the wool trade, in which the produce of the sheepwalks of northern England was exported to the textile cities of Flanders, where it was worked into cloth. Medieval foreign policy was as much shaped by relations with Flemish textile industry as it was by dynastic adventures in western France. An English textile industry was established in the fifteenth century, providing the basis for rapid English capital accumulation.

Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" , worked hard to reform and stabilize the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.

During the disastrous and incompetent reign of Stephen (1135–1154), there was a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as civil war and lawlessness broke out. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders, he handed over large tracts of land. His conflicts with his cousin The Empress Matilda (also known as Empress Maud),led to a civil war, from 1139 - 1153 . Matilda’s father, Henry I, had required the leading barons, ecclesiastics and officials in Normandy and England, take an oath to accept Matilda as his heir. England, was far less than enthusiastic to accept an outsider, and a woman, as their Ruler. There is some evidence suggesting Henry was unsure of his own hopes and the oath to make Matilda his heir. In likelihood, Henry probably hoped Matilda would have a son, and step aside, as Queen Mother, making her son the next heir. Upon Henry’s death, the Norman and English barons ignored Matilda’s claim to the throne, and thus through a series of decisions, Stephen of England, Henry’s favorite nephew was welcomed by many in England and Normandy, as their new ruler. On December 22, 1135, Stephen was anointed king, with the implicit support of the church and nation. Matilda, and her own son, stood for direct descent by heredity from Henry I, and bided her time in France. In the autumn of 1139, she invaded England with her illegitimate half-brother Robert of Gloucester. By the time her husband -Geoffroy V of Anjou- conquered Normandy but did not cross the channel to help his wife, satisfied with Normandy and Anjou.

Stephen was captured and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, although his hold on the throne was still uneasy. Geoffroy's son -Henry- resumed the invasion, he was already Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy and Duke of Aquitaine when he landed in England. When Stephen's son and heir apparent Eustace died in 1153 Stephen reached an accommodation with Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) to succeed Stephen and in which peace between them was guaranteed. England was at that time part of a greater union retrospectively named the Angevin Empire. Henry II expanded his power through various means and to different levels into Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Flanders, Nantes, Brittany, Quercy, Toulouse, Bourges and Auvergne.

The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state in England; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism. In his reign new Anglo-Angevin and Anglo-Aquitanian aristocracies developed, though not to the same point than the Anglo-Norman once did, and the Norman nobles interacted with their French peers.

Henry's successor, Richard I "the Lion Heart", was preoccupied with foreign wars, taking part in the Third Crusade and defending his French territories against Philip II of France. His younger brother John, who succeeded him, was not so fortunate; he suffered the loss of Normandy and numerous other French territories following the disastrous Battle of Bouvines. He also managed to antagonize the feudal nobility and leading Church figures to the extent that in 1215, they led an armed rebellion and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which imposed legal limits on the King's personal powers.

John's son, Henry III, was only 9 years old when he became King. His reign was punctuated by numerous rebellions and civil wars, often provoked by incompetence and mismanagement in Government, and Henry's perceived over-reliance on French courtiers (thus restricting the influence of the English nobility). One of these rebellions, led (curiously enough) by a disaffected courtier, Simon de Montfort, was notable for its assembly of one of the earliest precursors to Parliament. Aside of fighting the Second Barons War Henry III made war against Saint Louis and was defeated during the Saintonge War, yet Louis IX did not capitalize his victory, respecting his opponent's rights.

The reign of Edward I (1272–1307) was rather more successful. Edward enacted numerous laws strengthening the powers of his Government, and summoned the first officially sanctioned Parliaments of England (such as his Model Parliament). He conquered Wales, and attempted to use a succession dispute to gain control of the Kingdom of Scotland, though this developed into a costly and drawn-out military campaign. His son, Edward II, suffered a massive defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn; but the campaign continued until the early years of Edward III, and was only finally abandoned after the conclusion of the Treaty of Northampton in 1328.

The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1349 and killed perhaps up to a third of the population. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and the Hundred Years War against the French and their Scottish allies. Notable English victories in the Hundred Years' War included Crécy and Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owain Glyndŵr, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to become Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.

Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people with Royal blood in their veins. Because land was equivalent to power in these days, this meant that these powerful men could now try to make good their claim to the Crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV sowed the seeds for what was to come. In the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, things came to a head because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. Unable to control the feuding nobles, he allowed outright civil war to break out. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Edward IV went a little way to restoring this power but the spadework was generally done by Henry VII.

[edit] Tudor England

The Wars of the Roses culminated in the eventual victory of the relatively unknown Henry Tudor, Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where the Yorkist Richard III was slain, and the succession of the Lancastrian House was ultimately assured. Whilst in retrospect it is easy for us to date the end of the Wars of the Roses to the Battle of Bosworth Field, Henry VII could afford no such complacency. Before the end of his reign, two pretenders would try to wrest the throne from him, aided by remnants of the Yorkist faction at home and abroad. The first, Lambert Simnel, was defeated at the Battle of Stoke (the last time an English King fought someone claiming the Crown) and the second, Perkin Warbeck, was hanged in 1499 after plaguing the King for a decade.

In 1497, Michael An Gof led Cornish rebels in a march on London. In a battle over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford Bridge, An Gof fought for various issues with their root in taxes. On June 17, 1497 they were defeated, and Henry VII had showed he could display military prowess when he needed to. But, like Charles I in the future, here was a King with no wish to go "on his travels" again. The rest of his reign was relatively peaceful, despite a slight worry over the succession when his wife Elizabeth of York died in 1503. King Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Though his religious position was not at all Protestant, the resultant schism ultimately led to England distancing itself almost entirely from Rome. A notable casualty of the schism was Henry's chancellor, Sir Thomas More. There followed a period of great religious and political upheaval, which led to the English Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and much of the wealth of the church. The Dissolution of the Monasteries had the effect of giving many of the lower classes (the gentry) a vested interest in the Reformation continuing, for to halt it would be to revive Monasticism and restore lands which were gifted to them during the Dissolution.

[edit] Politics

There has not been a Government of England since 1707, when the Kingdom of England merged with the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, although both kingdoms have been ruled by a single monarch since 1603. Prior to the Acts of Union of 1707, England was ruled by a monarch and the Parliament of England.

The Scottish and Welsh governing institutions were created by the UK parliament with support from the majority of people of Scotland and Wales in referenda in 1997 and are not independent of the rest of Britain. However, this gave each country a separate and distinct political identity,[citation needed] leaving England (83% of the UK population) as the only part of Britain directly ruled in nearly all matters by the British government in London. In Cornwall, a region of England claiming a distinct national identity, there has been a campaign for a Cornish assembly along Welsh lines by nationalist parties such as Mebyon Kernow.

Because Westminster is the UK parliament but also votes on local English matters (England has no parliament of its own) devolution of national matters to parliament/assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has refocused attention on a long-standing anomaly called the West Lothian question. Before Scottish devolution, purely-Scottish matters were debated at Westminster, but subject to a convention that only Scottish MPs could vote on them. The "Question" was that there was no "reverse" convention: Scottish MPs could and did vote on issues relating only to England and Wales.

Welsh devolution has removed the anomaly for Wales, but highlighted the anomaly for England: Scottish and Welsh MPs can vote on English issues, but purely Scottish and Welsh issues are debated in Scotland and Wales, not at Westminster. This problem is exacerbated by an over-representation of Scottish MPs in the government, sometimes referred to as the Scottish mafia; as of September 2006, seven of the twenty-three Cabinet members are Scottish, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Defence Secretary. In addition, Scotland traditionally benefited from moderate malapportionment in its favour, increasing its representation to a degree disproportionate to its population; only recently has the Boundary Commission turned its attention to the rectification of this issue and not until the 2007 redrawing of boundaries has Scotland's representation been in line with the rest of the UK.

In terms of national administration, England's affairs are managed by a combination of the UK government, the UK parliament, a number of England-specific quangos, such as English Heritage, and the mostly unelected Regional Assemblies (a kind of nascent executive for each English Region).

England also has several Nationalist parties, British National Party, British National Front, British Peoples Party and other smaller organizations.

[edit] Geography

England comprises the central and southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain, plus offshore islands of which the largest is the Isle of Wight. It is bordered to the north by Scotland and to the west by Wales. It is closer to continental Europe than any other part of Britain, divided from France only by a 52 km (24 statute mile or 21 nautical mile)[20] sea gap. The Channel Tunnel, near Folkestone, directly links England to the European mainland. The English/French border is halfway along the tunnel.

Most of England consists of rolling hills, but it is more mountainous in the north with a chain of low mountains, the Pennines, dividing east and west. The dividing line between terrain types is usually indicated by the Tees-Exe line. There is also an area of flat, low-lying marshland in the east, the Fens, much of which has been drained for agricultural use.

The list of England's largest cities is much debated because in English the normal meaning of city is "a continuously built-up urban area"; these are hard to define and various other definitions are preferred by some people to boost the ranking of their own city. For the official definition of a UK (and therefore English) city, see City status in the United Kingdom. However, by any definition London is by far the largest urban area in England and one of the largest and busiest cities in the world. Birmingham is the second largest, both in terms of the city itself and its urban conurbation. A number of other cities, mainly in central and northern England, are of substantial size and influence. These include: Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bristol, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham and Hull.

The largest natural harbour in England is at Poole, on the south-central coast. Some regard it as the second largest harbour in the world, after Sydney, Australia, although this fact is disputed.

Climate

England has a temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall all year round, though the seasons are quite variable in temperature. However, temperatures rarely fall below −5 °C (23 °F) or rise above 30 °C (86 °F). The prevailing wind is from the south-west, bringing mild and wet weather to England regularly from the Atlantic Ocean. It is driest in the east and warmest in the south, which is closest to the European mainland. Snowfall can occur in Winter and early Spring, though it is not that common away from high ground.

The highest temperature ever recorded in England is 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) on August 10, 2003 at Brogdale, near Faversham, in Kent. The lowest temperature ever recorded in England is −26.1 °C (−15.0 °F) on January 10, 1982 at Edgmond, near Newport, in Shropshire.

Major Rivers

• Severn (the longest river basin in Great Britain)
• Thames
• Trent
• Humber
• Tyne
• Tees
• Ribble
• Ouse
• Mersey
• Dee
• Avon

Larger Cities

• Greater London Urban Area 8,278,251
• West Midlands conurbation 2,284,093
• Greater Manchester Urban Area 2,240,230
• West Yorkshire Urban Area 1,499,465
• Tyneside 879,996
• Liverpool Urban Area 816,216
• Nottingham Urban Area 666,358
• Sheffield Urban Area 640,720
• Greater Bristol 551,066
• Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton 461,181
• Portsmouth Urban Area 442,252
• Leicester Urban Area 441,213
• Bournemouth Urban Area 383,713
• Reading/Wokingham Urban Area 369,804
• Teesside 365,323

[edit] Economics

England's economy is the second largest economy in Europe and the fifth largest economy in the world. It follows the Anglo-Saxon economic model. England's economy is the largest of the four economies of the United Kingdom, with 100 of Europe's 500 largest corporations based in London. As part of the United Kingdom, England is a major center of world economics. One of the world's most highly industrialized Countries, England is a leader in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors and in key technical industries, particularly aerospace, the arms industry and the manufacturing side of the software industry.

London exports mainly manufactured goods and imports materials such as petroleum, tea, wool, raw sugar, timber, butter, metals, and meat, exporting over 30,000 tonnes of beef last year, worth around £75,000,000, with France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain being the biggest importers of beef from England.

The central bank of the United Kingdom, which sets interest rates and implements monetary policy, is the Bank of England in London. London is also home to the London Stock Exchange, the main stock exchange in the UK and the largest in Europe. London, is one of the international leaders in finance, and the largest financial center in Europe.

Traditional heavy and manufacturing industries have declined sharply in England in recent decades, as they have in the United Kingdom as a whole. At the same time, service industries have grown in importance. For example, tourism is the sixth largest industry in the UK, contributing 76 billion pounds to the economy. It employs 1,800,000 full-time equivalent people — 6.1% of the working population (2002 figures). The largest center for tourism is London, which attracts millions of international tourists every year.

As part of the United Kingdom, England's official currency is the Pound Sterling (also known as the British pound or GBP)

[edit] Demographics

With 50,431,700 inhabitants, or 84% of the UK's total, England is the most populous nation in the United Kingdom; as well as being the most ethnically diverse. England would have the fourth largest population in the European Union and would be the 25th largest country by population if it were a sovereign state.

The country's population is 'ageing', with a declining percentage of the population under age 16 and a rising one of over 65. Population continues to rise and in every year since 1901, with the exception of 1976, there have been more births than deaths. England is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, with 383 people per square kilometre (992/sq mi), making it second only to the Netherlands.

The generally accepted view is that the ethnic background of the English populace, before 19th- and 20th-century immigration, was a mixed European one deriving from historical waves of Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Norman invasions, along with the possible survival of pre-Celtic ancestry.

The economic prosperity of England has also made it a destination for economic migrants from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This was particularly true during the Industrial Revolution.

Since the fall of the British Empire, many denizens of former colonies have migrated to Britain including the Indian sub-continent and the British Caribbean. A BBC published report of the 2001 census, by the Institute for Public Policy Research stated that the vast majority of immigrants settled in London and the South East of England. The largest groups of residents born in other countries were from the Republic of Ireland, India, Pakistan, Germany, and the Caribbean. Though Germany was high on the list, this was mainly the result of children being born to British forces personnel stationed in that country.

About half the population increase between 1991 and 2001 was due to foreign-born immigration. In 2004 the number of people who became British citizens rose to a record 140,795 - a rise of 12% on the previous year. This number had risen dramatically since 2000. The overwhelming majority of "new citizens" come from Africa (32%) and Asia (40%), the largest three groups being people from Pakistan, India and Somalia. One in five babies in the UK are born to immigrant mothers, according to official statistics released in 2007 that also show the highest birth rates in Britain for 26 years. 21.9 per cent of all births in the UK in 2006 were to mothers born outside the United Kingdom compared to just 12.8 per cent in 1995. Next year, the number one name for a baby boy will be Mohommed.

In 2005, an estimated 565,000 migrants arrived to live in the UK for at least a year, while 380,000 people emigrated from the UK for a year or more, with Australia, Spain and France most popular destinations. Largest group of arrivals were people from the Indian subcontinent who accounted for two-thirds of net immigration, mainly fueled by asylum seekers.

The European Union allows free movement between the member states. While France and Germany put in place controls to curb Eastern European migration, the UK (along with Ireland) did not impose restrictions. Following Poland's entry into the EU in May 2004 it is estimated that by the start of 2007 about 375,000 Poles have registered to work in the UK, although the total Polish population in the UK is believed to be 750,000. Many Poles work in seasonal occupations and a large number is likely to move back and forth including between Ireland and other EU Western nations. A quarter of Eastern European migrants, often young and well-educated, plan to stay in Britain permanently, which they send their money back to their Countries. Most of them had originally intended to go home but have changed their minds after living there.

[edit] Inventions and Intellectual Pioneers

Some Notable Inventors:

• Richard Arkwright — inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
• Charles Babbage — inventor of the first computer (in the nineteenth century).
• Tim Berners-Lee — inventor of the World Wide Web, http, html, and many of the other technologies on which the Web is based.
• James Blundell — who performed the first blood transfusion.
• Hubert Cecil Booth — inventor of the Vacuum cleaner.
• Edwin Beard Budding — inventor of the lawnmower.
• George Cayley — inventor of the seat belt.
• Christopher Cockerell — inventor of the hovercraft.
• John Dalton — pioneer of atomic theory.
• James Dyson — inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
• Thomas Fowler — inventor of the thermosiphon.
• Robert Hooke — Hooke's law of elasticity
• E. Purnell Hooley — inventor of tarmac.
• Isaac Newton — defining Universal gravitation, Universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics, Infinitesimal calculus
• Stephen Perry — inventor of the rubber band.
• Percy Shaw — inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
• George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson — railway pioneers (father and son).
• Joseph Swan — developer of the light bulb.
• Richard Trevithick — builder of the earliest steam locomotive.
• Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers — inventors of the modern computer and its associated concepts and technologies.
• Frank Whittle — inventor of the jet engine.
• Joseph Whitworth — inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies of precision engineering.

Literature

• William Shakespeare Playwright
• Christopher Marlowe Playwright
• Ben Jonson Playwright
• John Webster Playwright
• Daniel Defoe
• Henry Fielding
• Jane Austen
• Charlotte Bronte
• Emily Bronte
• J.R.R. Tolkien
• Charles Dickens
• HG Wells
• George Eliot
• Rudyard Kipling
• DH Lawrence
• EM Forster
• Virginia Woolf
• George Orwell
• Harold Pinter

Music

Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and particularly during the nineteenth century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the twentieth century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

Science and Philosophy

• Isaac Newton
• Michael Faraday
• J.J. Thomson
• Charles Babbage
• Charles Darwin
• Stephen Hawking
• Christopher Wren

[edit] External links

• Official Site
• Genealogical research information about England.