8.1.1 Text 资料文件与下载

8.1. The United Kingdom

1. The United Kingdom is a sovereign country, officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the UK or Britain. The UK is a unitary parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. The current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II. The United Kingdom consists of four constituent countries: England (the capital London), Scotland (the capital Edinburgh), Wales (the capital Cardiff), and Northern Ireland (the capital Belfast). The territory of the UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of Ireland and many smaller islands. The Great Britain is an island within the British Isles; the British Isles are a group of islands that consist of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and over six thousand smaller isles. The parliament of the United Kingdom meets in the Palace of Westminster and has two houses: an elected House of Commons and an appointed House of Lords. The UK's head of government is the prime minister.

2. before the eighteenth century

Julius Caesar made two expeditions into Britain, since then the southern Great Britain was controlled by Romans as province of Britannia. In the early 5th century, Germanic Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic tribes conquered Britain. They called it England, meaning land of Angles. England was unified as a Kingdom in the 10th century. In 1066 William the Conqueror conquered England and became the first Norman King of England. House of Normandy ruled England from 1066 until 1135. Then the House of Plantagenet and its two cadet branches, the Houses of Lancaster and York ruled from 1154 until 1485. Within this time the Hundred Year’s War happened from 1346 to 1452. After the War of Roses from 1455 to 1485, Henry Tudor became the first king from The House of Tudor. This house ruled England, Wales and Ireland from 1485 until 1603 when Elizabeth the Virgin Queen died. Elizabeth’ cousin James I, King of Scotland became King of England and Ireland. The kingdoms of Scotland and England remained two individual sovereign states, though both were ruled by James in personal union. James I was the first king from the House of Stuart. After the Glorious Revolution in 1685, Dutch stadtholder William III, Prince of Orange and Mary were crowned King and Queen. In 1689 parliament passed the Declaration of Right which finally changed the country into a Constitutional monarchy.

3. Anne and the Treaty of Union

During the reign of Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, the parliaments of England and Scotland passed the Acts of Union in 1706. The kingdoms of England and Scotland united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain. Anne continued to reign as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland until her death in 1714. Anne was the last monarch of the House of Stuart which ruled the British Isles from James I in 1603 until the death of Queen Anne in 1714. Except for the period of the Commonwealth from 1649 to 1660 during the English Revolution. During her reign in 1704, England captured Gibraltar from Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession. It remained today as a British Overseas Territory. Gibraltar is located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula; it controls the entrance and exit to the Mediterranean Sea.

4. House of Hanover

When Ann died in 1714, she was succeeded by her second cousin George I of the House of Hanover. George’s mother was granddaughter of James I, George’s father was the ruler of Duchy and Electorate of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire. Thus George I was both King of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Hanover until his death in 1727. House of Hanover originally from Germany, they ruled Great Britain from 1714 until the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. After that the House of Windsor ruled the country until now, the current Queen Elizabeth II belong to the House of Windsor.

George I was not popular among Britons because he paid more attention to Hanover and surrounded himself with Germans. His son George II (1727–1760), by the help of Sir Robert Walpole, built up the First British Empire, strengthening the colonies in the Caribbean and North America.

5. Political parties

Political parties initially developed in the late seventeenth century. James Ⅱ became king from 1685 and he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution in 1688. Those who opposed James Ⅱ because he was a Catholic were called Whigs meaning Scottish horse thieves. Those supported James and the Anglican Church were called Tories meaning Irish cattle rustlers, rustler means stealer. Whigs supported George I to be the king and Tories opposed it, thus Whigs were supported by the king. The Whigs took full control of the government in 1715 and remained totally dominant until King George III coming to the throne in 1760. The first great leader of the Whigs was Robert Walpole.

Sir Robert Walpole was a British statesman who is generally regarded as the de facto first Prime Minister of Great Britain. He holds the record as the longest-serving British prime minister in history, served George I then George II from 1721 to 1742. He was a great orator; his speech was passionate, reasonable and persuasive. He was confident and tried to be moderate. His policies for peace, lower taxes and growing exports and allowing a little more tolerance for Protestants attracted moderates from both parties. George II offered 10 Downing Street to Walpole as a personal gift in 1732; it still remained as the official residence of the Prime Minister. This is 10 Downing Street and the current Prime Minister Theresa May.

6. George III (1760–1820) was the grandson of George II. He never visited Hanover, and spoke English as his first language. He was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 1760 until the union of the two countries in 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death in 1820. During his reign, Britain won the Seven Years' War but lost its Thirteen Colonies in the American Revolutionary War in 1783.

The Seven Years' War was a global war fought between 1756 and 1763. Some historians called it the "World War Zero" because it was similar to other two world wars in scale. It involved every European great power and spanned five continents. It was fought by two coalitions. One led by Great Britain including Prussia, Portugal and other small German states. The other side led by the Kingdom of France including the Austrian-led Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, Spain and the Swedish Empire. Conflict between Great Britain and France broke when the British attacked disputed French positions in North America. In Europe Prussia pre-emptively struck Saxony and this angered Austria. Austria wanted to retake Silesia which had been lost to Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession. Austria allied with France and declared war on Prussia. The war ended with the victory of the Great Britain.

7. In North America, Britain won full control of Canada. France lost the large territory New France to Britain. Britain also got Florida from Spain. The British victory over France in the Seven Years' War therefore left Britain as the world's dominant colonial power.so you can see this part formally belongs to France now belongs to UK and also Florida

8. Pax Britannica 1815-1914 is a Latin term for "British Peace", modelled after Pax Romana. It was a period about hundred years from the early 19th to the early 20^th century, a period of relative peace between the Great Powers during which the British Empire became the global hegemonic power and adopted the role of a global police force. It may be a "British Peace", but it was a bloody disastrous time to India and China and many countries they conquered and colonized. The First and the Second Opium War all happened during this time.

The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 1837 until her death in 1901.Victoria was called "the grandmother of Europe" because her nine children married into royal and noble families across Europe. This era saw the Britain imperial expansion, particularly in Asia and Africa. The British Empire became the largest empire in history. National self-confidence peaked.

9. Charles Dickens1812 – 1870, was the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, known for Oliver Twist, Hard Times, Great Expectations and many other novels. His  best-known historical fiction A Tale of Two Cities set in London and Paris. Let’s read the opening sentence: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way……

Charles Darwin, 1809 –1882) was the greatest scientist in the Victorian era. He was a naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution explained in His book On the Origin of Species that was published in 1859.

10. British Empire

After the independence of the United States, Great Britain turned to conquer and colonize Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. After the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815), Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. It became the largest empire in history. By the early of the 20^th century it ruled 23% of the world population, 24% of the Earth's total land area. It was called "the empire on which the sun never sets" because as an empire around the globe the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories. But remember one thing: the great power, the great glory and great prosperity of this empire was based on the great suffering, death and blood of the people they conquered and colonized.

11. British Empire at its territorial peak in 1921. From this map, we can see the British Empire at its territorial peak in 1921.

12. Key words: Now let’s look at the key words from this part: Whigs and Tories, House of Hanover, Sir Robert Walpole, the Seven Years' War, The Victorian era , Pax Britannica.

This is the end of the first part of the Eighteenth century. Now we finish the first part of Chapter 8.