Anjini & Suzanna Sim
Britain and Ireland Period 1
bold Major eras
underlined Time periods
purple Wars/Major events i.e. battles
maroon Monarchs
Renaissance
● Late 15th century Northern humanism spreads to England
○ Thomas More’s Utopia (perfect society)
● 1450-1521 evolution in politics
○ Population decline
○ Wars of the Roses (Yorkists won; rise of Tudor dynasty)
■ diplomacy, not wars
■ Court of Star Chamber eliminated threat of nobility
■ 1509 death of Henry VII: England at peace
Reformation
● 1530s Henry VIII’s desire to annull marriage to Catherine of Aragon → break with Rome
○ Head of Church of England
○ Dissolved monasteries
○ Mixed reaction by the people
● 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace: largest rebellion in British history
● Loyalty to Catholic Church strong in Ireland but forced to adopt Anglican Church →
fueled age-old Irish-English antagonism
● 1553-1558 Mary Tudor: shift back to Catholicism (executions, Protestants fled)
● 1558-1603 Elizabeth I inaugurates beginnings of religious stability: “shrewd middle
course” where public Church of England services but free private worship
● 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada
○ Decisive English defeat of Philip II of Spain
○ No Catholicism in England
○ + nationalism
Exploration and Conquest
● 1585 Roanoke: first English settlement in New World but disappeared
● 1607 Jamestown: first permanent settlement
● 1621-1681 Religious groups escaping oppression in England found many New England
colonies (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland)
○ Trend: settlements hug coastline
● Shakespeare: a Renaissance man
○ Brilliant playwright
○ Explores perspectives on racial and religious complexities of the age
Absolutism and Constitutionalism
● Mid 17th century increased warfare and taxation leads to bread riots and uprisings
● Queen Elizabeth I reigns with control and is popular with subjects
● James I believes in divine right (against the long standing English idea that a person's
property could not be taken away without due process of law)
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Charles I
○ Attemps to govern without Parliament → brings England to crisis
○ Antagonizes religious sentiments by marrying a Catholic and supporting
Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud (new prayer book, bishoprics); Charles
calls Parliament to get money to suppress Scottish revolt
1640-1660 Members of Parliament form "Long Parliament" to limit the king's control
1641 House of Commons passes Trennial Act, compelling the king to summon
Parliament every three years; Ireland rebels
○ Charles, unable to respond to Ireland w/o an army flees to the north of England
and recruits his own army. In response, Parliament forms its own army, the New
Model Army.
1642-1649 The English Civil War: King vs. Parliament; Cromwell captures the king and
dismisses members opposing him in Parliament which results in his execution (kingship
is abolished)
1653-1658 Cromwell (a “monarch” for the sake of the color scheme) and Puritanical
Absolutism in England; theoretically a republic, but in reality is a military dictatorship
under Cromwell
○ 1655 Cromwell dismisses Parliament, established quasi-martial law
○ Reconquers Ireland: bans Catholicism in Ireland, executes priests, confiscates
land from Catholics
○ 1651 Cromwell enforces the Navigation Act, requiring English goods to be
transported on English ships: short but successful war against the Dutch
1660 Restoration of the English Monarchy with Charles II
○ 1670 Charles enters a secret agreement with Louis XIV
○ 1673 Parliament enacts the Test Act
○ James II succeeds Charles; grants religious freedom
1688 England becomes a constitutional monarchy with the Glorious Revolution; William
and Mary accept the English throne
18th century Cabinet system evolves
Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment
● 1628 William Harvey: heart is like a valve + idea of blood circulation
● 1664-1666 Newton begins his work on the law of universal gravitation, centripetal force,
etc.; fundamentals of calculus
● 1684 Publishes Principia: system integrating works of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo
with 3 laws of motion
● Francis Bacon creates idea of empiricism (experimentation and observation vs.
speculation) and inductive reasoning
● 1662 Creation of National Academy of Sciences
● 1627-1691 Robert Boyle founded Chemistry
● Trend: after 1640 rapid development of scientific thought in England; too much religious
conflict for religion to influence science
● 1690 Locke publishes Essay Concerning Human Understanding: first major
Enlightenment text; discusses how ideas are derived from experiences
● Trend: the Scottish Enlightenment focuses on pragmatic/scientific reasoning
○ Creation of the first public education system in Europe
○ 1711-1776 David Hume: religious skepticism, idea that human mind is a bundle
of impressions
○ 1735-1803 James Beattie: against white supremacy
French Revolution
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Divided opinions in England
○ 1790 Edmund Burke defends the monarchy
○ 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft supports the French Revolution and women’s rights
February 1793 Britain goes to war with France
1805 Battle of Trafalgar
○ Lord Nelson defeats Napoleon
○ Prevents Napoleon’s invasion of England
Napoleon’s Continental System attempts to destroy the British economy but backfires on
the French
18th Century Social Trends
● Trend: rise of Methodism (John Wesley) in England as a response to the problems with
the Anglican Church
Industrial Revolution
● 1780s IR begins in Great Britain
○ Causes: expanding Atlantic economy, colonial empire, overseas market,
agricultural revolution (created consumerism at home), canals, iron and coal
● 1765 James Hargreaves invents spinning jenny and Richard Arkwright invents the water
frame: leads to explosion in cotton textile industry
● 1785 Edmund Cartwright invents power loom
● 1790 Samuel Crompton invents alternate design that requires more power than human
arm (necessitates building of factories)
○ These cotton mills marked the start of the IR
● 1760s James Watt patents the improved steam engine
○ IR's most fundamental advance in technology
○ Unlimited power at hands of humanity
○ Powered the IR
● 1780s Henry Cort invents puddling furnace
● 1830 George Stephenson builds the Rocket--first railroad and locomotive construction
● 1851 Crystal Palace displays England's power and might from the IR
● Effects of IR in England: GNP 4x, population boomed, first industrial nation; spurred and
revolutionized industry elsewhere in the world
● Industrial backlash: romantics condemned, the conditions of workers became a subject
of debate
○ 1812 Luddites attacked factories and smashed machines they felt were putting
them out of work
○ Factory Act of 1833 limited factory workday for children
● Early labor movement
○ 1824 Parliament repeals Combination Acts
○ 1834 emergence of Grand National Consolidated Trades Union
○ 1851+ Amalgamated Society of Engineers
○ Chartist movement: sought right to vote for all men
Ideologies and Upheavals
● First great Romantic poets were British: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott
● Liberal reform
○ 1815-1817 revision of the Corn Laws, suspension of rights to peaceable
assembly and have as corpus, Six Acts: public protest (Battle of Peterloo)
○ Reform Bill of 1832 increases number of male voters and power of House of
Commons
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○ 1839 Anti-Corn Law League
○ 1846 repeal of Corn Laws (enshrined free trade in GB)
○ 1847 Ten Hours Act limits workday for women and children
Healthy competition between middle class and aristocracy for support of the working
class was crucial for GB's peaceful and progressive evolution, not revolution
1845 Great Famine in Ireland
○ Already destitute, high population, early marriages, large families
○ Starvation and disease from the famine; British government was slow to act +
atrocities from landlords to their poor tenants
○ Famine shattered population; Ireland became a land of out-migration, late
marriage, early death, and widespread celibacy
○ Intensified Irish nationalism and anti-British feeling: eventually led to calls for
reform, home rule, and independence in long run
Life in the Emerging Urban Society
● 19th century: Industrial Revolution begins
○ Challenges of the urban environoment felt first in Great Britain, due to population
increase, absense of public transportation, government's slowness to provide
sanitary facilities and adequate building codes, and ignorance
● Mid-19th century: Edwin Chadwick publishes reports on the sanitary conditions of the
laboring population, beginning reforms for more sanitary living conditions.
● 1865 Joseph Lister, an English surgeon, uses Pasteur's information about bacteria in the
air to figure out the connection between aerial bacteria and wound infection.
● 1840s-1890s Realism spreads from France to England
○ Mary Ann Evans, Thomas Hardy
Age of Nationalism
● 1832 males of the solid middle class are allowed to vote
● 1866 Second Reform Bill extended the vote to all middle class males
● 1867 Third Reform Bill gave voting rights to almost every adult male
● 1901-1910 House of Lords tried to reassert itself
○ 1906 Liberal Party comes into power, the Lords veto several measures passed
by the Commons including the People's Budget
○ The Lords finally capitulated and yielded to popular democracy after the king
threatened them
● 1906-1914 the Liberal Party raised taxes in the rich (People's Budget) helping the
government pay for national health insurance, unemployment benefits, old age
pensions, and other social measures
The West and the World (Imperialism)
● GB took the lead in international commerce
● Britain in China
○ 1820s begin illegal opium trade
○ 1842 force China to accept the Treaty of Nanking (cede Hong Kong, pay an
indemnity, and open up 4 major cities to trade)
○ 1856-1860 military campaign opening China
● Britain in Egypt: 1876 Egypt owes too much debt to GB and F--they intervene to demand
payment and defeat the Egyptian rebellion; GB occupies Egypt until 1956
● 1840-1920 large amount of people migrate from British Isles (mostly in response to
hardship in Ireland)
● Britain in Africa in the age of new imperialism
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Cecil Rhodes in South Africa (fought Dutch Afrikaners in Boer War to cement
control of this region)
○ Conquest of Sudan after conflict with Sudanese at Omdurman and French at
Fashoda
British Empire in India: 1857-58 put down Sepoy Rebellion and rule India imperially until
1947
War and Revolution (WWI)
● August 1914 GB enters the war in response to Germany's invasion of neutral Belgium
● Summer 1916 Battle of the Somme (great British offensive)
● [not done yet]
Age of Anxiety
Dictatorships and the Second World War
● 1935 Hitler builds up the German army, Britain protested strongly but only warned
Germany (adopts apeasement)
● 1936 Hitler blatantly violates the Treaty of Versaille and Locarno by militarizing the
Rhineland, Britain refused to act
● 1938 British prime minister, Arthur Neville Chamberlain attends the Munich Conference,
agreed that Hitler should take over the Sudetenland
● 1939 Hitler attacks Poland, and Britan declares war on Germany (WWII begins)
● 1940 Only Britain remains unconquered, Hitler attempts to attack Britain (Battle of
Britain)
○ Germany attempts to gain conquest of the air
○ British increases its aircraft factories and defeats Germany
● [not done yet]