A History of the British Isles

Jeremy Black

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781137573612
• Edition: 4
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350306752
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

A core introductory textbook that provides students with a concise overview of the full sweep of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh history, from pre-Roman times right through to the present day. Jeremy Black offers a balanced and absorbing account of a group of islands, their peoples, their extraordinary shared past and their remarkable impact on the rest of the world.

This is an ideal set text for dedicated modules on British history, or a supplementary text for broader modules on European history, which may be offered at all levels of an undergraduate history or European studies degree. In addition it is a crucial resource for students who may be studying the history of Britain for the first time as part of a taught postgraduate degree in British or European history.

New to this Edition:
- Revised and updated throughout in light of the latest research
- Provides coverage of recent events
- Pays greater attention to social developments

1 Pre-Roman and Roman Britain

Among the stalactites and stalagmites of Kent’s Cavern, the impressive cave system at Torbay in Devon, early hominids, Neanderthals and Stone Age men successively lived. The caves gave them shelter from south-west winds and opened to the light from the east. Earlier, bears had hibernated in the darker recesses of the caves. Now the caves are an inspiring visit for tourists and a challenge for artists; but, for most of their long human history, they reflected the struggle of man, like other creatures, to adapt successfully to the land and the opportunities and problems it posed. The long and complex history of the British Isles in part represents the interaction of man and a very varied natural environment.

This environment is the proper focus at the outset because it greatly helped shape life in Britain and is still very important today. The British Isles are both part of Europe and yet, from the Mesolithic period in about 6500 BCE,¹ separated from it by the sea, an important aspect of national history and identity. The British Isles have a very varied geology, topography, climate and natural vegetation. We should be careful about projecting the modern environment onto the past: climate and drainage, even the coastline and water levels, were different. Yet, in simple terms, the bulk of the west and north of Britain is higher and wetter, its soils poorer and its agriculture pastoral rather than arable: centred on animals, not crops. Much of Ireland is like west and north Britain, although there is less high land. However, there are many exceptions to this description of the British Isles as a result of a highly complex geological history and of great climatic variations.

Thus, the north and west also contain fertile lowlands, such as the central lowlands of Scotland, the Vale of York in Yorkshire, and the Vale of Eden in Cumbria; while the south and east include areas of poor fertility, such as the sandy wastes of the Breckland in Suffolk or the hilly greensand of the Weald in Kent.

Nevertheless, the essential contrast in England is between the colder, hillier north and the warmer, lower south, the wetter west and the drier east, and, despite the effects of climate change in the past, these contrasts have been consistent. And there are political consequences. Upland areas such as the Pennines, a range of hills that forms the backbone of northern England, have not generally served as centres of power. Instead, prior to the Roman invasion, hill forts were more numerous in the south and west of England. There were relatively few in the north and east. Some were in the Cheviots and Lothians of southern Scotland, but there were very few indeed in the Pennines proper. For much of English and Scottish history, wealth and influence have been disproportionately present in the south of each country, with the east also being generally more significant than the west.

Wales clearly shows the consequences of terrain and climate. It is largely mountainous: 60 per cent of the surface area is above the 200-metre line. Until nineteenth-century bridge-building and tunnelling, such terrain acted as an effective brake on communications: the natural links in Wales run east–west, not north–south, and this situation has had historical and political implications over the centuries. Exposed to prevalent westerly winds that are forced to rise to cross its mountains, Wales, like Ireland, west Scotland, and north-west and south-west England, receives a heavy rainfall. This plays a major role in washing the soil from its uplands. Thus, aside from the difficulty of cultivating mountainous terrain, much of upland Britain has relatively poor, often acidic, soil and is unsuitable for continuous or intensive cultivation. This situation encourages a dependence on the rearing of animals, a form of agriculture that cannot support the higher population levels of arable regions and that encourages dispersed settlement.

Within Europe, early man lived first in the warmer areas of the south, but, when the climate permitted between the advance of the glaciers, spread from there into northern Europe. The remains of early hominids and finds of tool assembly have been found in many sites in southern England, including Stoke Newington in London. Neanderthal hunters also left sites there, but these are far fewer than in France, especially south-west France, and Germany. The Neanderthals were replaced by anatomically modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period (c. 40,000 to c. 10,000 years ago). This lengthy period saw a development of social structures and stone-blade technology, although subsequent weathering, ploughing and other activity have greatly limited the surviving evidence. People retained useful objects for future use, had craftsmen with ideas of symmetry, and performed tasks entailing a division of labour. However, settlement was episodic, with the advance of the glaciers during the Ice Ages leading to periods without occupation, notably the Anglian glaciation.

After the last Ice Age came to an end, in around 10,000 BCE, there was a northward movement of forest and wildlife zones across the North European Plain, which then included Britain. Subsequently, in England as it became warmer, the trees of a cold climate – birch, pine and hazel – were replaced by oak, elm, ash and lime between 7500 and 5000 BCE. These deciduous forests were rich in plant and animal life. The warmer climate led to the arrival of red and roe deer and wild pig from further south, which encouraged a rise in the number of hunter-gatherers in the Mesolithic period (c. 8300 BCE to c. 4500 BCE). For example, the wood-lands of the Thames valley provided shelter for animals, such as deer, which, in turn, attracted hunters. They were equipped with microlithic flints mounted in wood or bone hafts, which provided effective tools for use, for example, as knives or as arrowheads.

Settlements spread considerably and became more fixed, notably in the river valleys, and trade developed. Evidence for tool manufacture increased. As the ice melted, the sea level rose, and, in about 6500 BCE, the land-bridge that joined England to the Continent across the southern North Sea was cut. More than half the human history of Britain had already passed by then.

This break did not prevent a transfer of agricultural development from the Continent. Domestic crops and agriculture spread into England in the fifth millennium BCE, although hunting, fishing and gathering wild plants continued. The first signs of farming occurred in Scotland in about 4500 BCE. The plough was in use in southern England in about 3500 BCE, which helped increase crop yields and encouraged the clearing of forest, leading to a drop in surviving tree pollen, an important source of evidence. The spread of domestic animals, cattle, pigs, sheep and goats, from the early Neolithic, brought milk, wool and an ability to pull ploughs, and was followed by wheeled vehicles. Animals played a major role in the economy, culture and religion. Animal motifs were incorporated in art, and animals had religious symbolism, being linked with particular deities. There is surviving archaeological evidence of farmsteads; and then villages, for example Skara Brae in the Orkneys, which dates from about 3000 BCE.

As the population rose and became settled rather than semi-nomadic, surviving evidence of permanent human presence in the landscape increases. This evidence takes the form, during the Neolithic period (c. 4000 to c. 2000 BCE), of ‘causewayed’ camps, ritual monuments and burial chambers, notably long and round barrows. Stone alignments and circles were created in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Dating from about 3200 to 1500 BCE, they became progressively more complex, suggesting a tendency towards ritual and maybe political centralisation. The religious practices of the people are obscure, although astronomical knowledge clearly played a major role; the midsummer sun rises along the axis of Stonehenge. Ritual centres such as Avebury and Stonehenge in southern England or the vast and complex tombs of the Boyne Valley in Ireland would have each required at least hundreds of thousands of man-hours to construct and were evidence of large-scale communal activity and organisation.

Trade developed as the flint necessary for agricultural tools and axes was mined and exchanged. Moreover, commerce along the coasts and across seas was a crucial development. By the third millennium BCE, copper metallurgy had spread into southern Britain. This increase in the material culture was followed in about 2000 BCE by the dissemination of a new burial pattern, known as ‘Beaker’, from the distinctive pottery in graves: these were individual burials with rich grave-goods, suggesting a more stratified society. There are also more known Late than Early Neolithic sites.

The Copper Age was followed, from about 2200 BCE to about 800 BCE, by that of bronze, a harder alloy of copper that was more effective in tools and weapons. Bronze replaced not only copper but also hard stone and flint. Social stratification appears to have become more pronounced. Numerous and large surviving burial mounds or barrows have been linked to areas likely to have benefited from trade, implying the existence of a social elite. Aside from trade, agriculture increased in response to the rising population, and land boundaries and, later, fields were laid out, notably from about 1500–1000 BCE on. Pollen and sediment studies suggest that the shift from nomadism to settlement and farming occurred especially in the Bronze Age, around 2000 BCE. This shift probably led to the widespread clearing of woodland in the second millennium BCE, although woodland remained a major economic resource, notably for timber and hunting.

Settlement became more permanent, and was linked to the development of trading routes, for example the middle Thames, and related commercial networks. Moreover, marginal areas were increasingly cleared of trees and cultivated. It has been suggested that Bronze Age society was more bellicose. There is increased evidence of fortifications, notably of defended hill-top settlements, of land divisions, suggesting that ownership of land was becoming more contested, and of weapons; and it has been argued that society was dominated by warriors.

They were to be challenged by the use of a new metal, in the Iron Age, which lasted from about 800 BCE to CE 43. The smelting and forging of iron spread from West Asia and arrived in England by 700 BCE. By 500 BCE iron tools were being used to clear trees. The use of iron hoes and nails brought a new flexibility to agriculture and construction. Iron also made better weapons, particularly when carbon was added to make steel.

England was exposed to pressure from the Celts, a culture that appeared in South Germany in about 800 BCE and then spread over much of France. The extent of Celtic influence in Britain is controversial. Features of Celtic settlement, culture and civilisation have been found in southern England, but, prefiguring debates about later developments, it is unclear how much was due to a widespread population movement, to more limited immigration or to trade. It is likely that all three played a role, and by the first century CE Celts were also dominant as far as Ireland.

In the first millennium BCE, therefore, the population of Britain rose and agriculture improved. For most of their history, the map of power in the British Isles was one that was heavily influenced by the geography of agriculture and agrarian systems, and this was particularly true of the pre-Roman period. Coins (with the first written words), proto-towns (larger and more complex settlements) and tribal ‘states’ with chieftain patterns of tribal organisation and populations of tens of thousands, existed in southern England, while much of the woodland had been cleared, especially in areas of light soil, and agriculture was both varied and extensive.

The situation was different in the north, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, although population estimates for Iron Age Scotland belie this to a degree. Relatively low population levels and a poorly developed agricultural base ensured that there was only a small surplus of wealth for taxation in these areas, and thus only a limited ability to support political and governmental activity. Most of late Iron Age Wales, for example, left no trace of pottery, although some fine metalwork has been left. In contrast, southern England was linked in this period to nearby areas of the Continent: to northern Gaul (France) and the Low Countries.

In conclusion, Britain was far from stagnant on the eve of the Roman conquest. It supported a growing population, a settled society and an aristocratic elite, although the tribal states did not amount to a sophisticated governmental system. The population may have been about two million, and there is much evidence for the manufacture of iron. Population pressure in both England and Scotland is indicated by the settlement of relatively undesirable areas. Moreover, archaeological work has led to a significant increase in the number of known sites, and this process will probably continue.

ROMAN CONQUEST

Having conquered Gaul (France), Julius Caesar, the Roman military leader there, claimed that it was necessary to stop British support for the Celts still resisting; there may indeed have been British assistance for the Veneti of Brittany. Caesar was also probably motivated by a desire for glory and plunder, and by the need to employ his troops. In 55 and 54 BCE, he launched expeditions against southern England, but met unexpectedly strong resistance and storms. As a result, Caesar was happy to return to Gaul.

Under his successors, trade links developed with Britain and there were diplomatic contacts, but there was no military action until 43 CE when the Emperor Claudius invaded. He sought to gain a military reputation to strengthen his position in Rome and invaded because Rome’s protégés in southern Britain had lost control. It is unclear what would have happened but for Roman conquest. Whereas the existence of a unified Pictavia in the area of Scotland not conquered by Rome is uncertain but has more advocates than in the past, the part of Germany that was not conquered by Rome was essentially to develop into a number of small kingdoms that focused on farming but also took part in trade, as did Ireland. Urban development was limited outside the Roman world, although the later histories of Glasgow and Hamburg scarcely suggest that Roman conquest was necessary for subsequent prominence.

The Romans rapidly conquered lowland Britain in the 40s and 50s CE. There was considerable resistance, led initially by the Catuvellani and, in particular, their leader Caratacus, to give them the Roman spelling of their names – inevitably, since almost all our knowledge of this period comes from Roman written sources. Having been victorious in South-East England, the Romans invaded Wales in pursuit of Caratacus. They also advanced simultaneously along a number of routes across southern England.

Initially, client rulers were left in place in a number of areas, notably Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire under the Atrebates tribe and East Anglia under the Iceni. In 60 CE the Governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was campaigning in north Wales against the Druids, anti-Roman priests and their supporters, when a major rising was staged by the Iceni tribe under their female leader Boudicca (Boadicea is a later corruption of the name). They were enraged by callous Roman rule and by the Romans’ treatment of the royal family, including the flogging of Boudicca and the rape of her daughters. The major Roman settlements, then Colchester, St Albans and London, were destroyed, but Paulinus crushed the Iceni in battle and they were then brutally ‘pacified’. Boudicca died, probably by suicide.

In the seventies, the Romans pressed forward again. The Brigantes of northern England were subjugated in 71–4 CE, Wales following. By 78 CE all of England and Wales was under Roman control, and this remained the case until links with Rome collapsed in 409. However, Britain was not conquered in its entirety, and the continued presence of a frontier zone ensured that, for protection, Britain absorbed a relatively high percentage of Roman military expenditure, and had a comparatively large number of troops. As a result of these troops, Britain played an important role during struggles for control in the Roman Empire and also had a series of forts which became the basis for towns.

Highland Scotland was never conquered by the Romans: the terrain was far more difficult for an invading power than lowland Britain and it was well defended. Agricola, governor from 77 to 83 CE, invaded Scotland, winning a notable victory at Mons Graupius, but part of his army was transferred to the Continent and only the Scottish lowlands south of the Forth–Clyde line were conquered. The Romans could win victories in Aberdeenshire as Agricola and Severus did, but retention proved a different matter. The Romans had to advance on the east coast route, which was always vulnerable to attack from the Angus glens, and did not master the penetration of the Carse of Stirling as Edward I was eventually to do. Although Agricola considered its conquest, Ireland was not attacked by the Romans. It nevertheless received a small but steady flow of Roman coins and other imported materials. They were in all like-lihood the result of mercenary activity and trade coming from Irish Sea garrison ports in western Britain such as Chester.

The Roman conquest thus, even as it united southern Britain for the first time in its history, also demonstrated a central feature of British history: a lack of political uniformity. In part, this lack of uniformity reflected a variety of local socio-environmental systems stemming from the physical variety of the island. Furthermore, in both Ireland and across much of Scotland, it is possible to point to continuities with the Iron Age, as much as to change, whether resulting from contact with the Romans or not. Nevertheless, there was certainly Roman influence in both areas.

The frontier zone was most clearly marked by Hadrian’s Wall, built by the Emperor Hadrian, who visited Britain in 122. The wall was constructed from then along the Tyne–Solway line, across the narrowest part of the island, to protect England from invasion from the north and as a means to control the upland zone by preventing free movement. To the south, the generally peaceful nature of Roman society encouraged a process of Romanisation. Roman citizenship was restricted neither to Romans nor to Italians. The Emperor Caracalla was the first to universal-ise it formally, although ninety years after Hadrian. Non-Romans could rise to the heights of power. Similarly, Roman conquest did not mean the expropriation of all property or power.

Roman religious cults spread, although assimilation with native Celtic beliefs was important. When Christianity became the state religion in the fourth century CE, this brought more systematic cultural links between England and the Continent, links not shared by non-Roman Scotland. In contrast to Christianity, the pre-Roman druids, whom the Romans stamped out, and the cults of the Olympian gods which they introduced, had both lacked diocesan structure and doctrinal regulation. The Olympian cults, however, prefigured Christianity in linking England to the Continent.

Yet pre-Roman pagan practices still continued, for, outside the towns, England was not as thoroughly Romanised as other provinces. Roman Britain, nevertheless, acquired an urban system linked and structured by roads, such as Ermine, Stane and Watling Streets and the Fosse Way. Reflecting the quality of Roman engineering, these roads were built to a high standard, with stone foundations and gravel su...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Maps
• Preface
• Introduction
• Maps
• 1. Pre-Roman and Roman Britain
• 2. British, English and Scandinavians, AD 400–1066
• 3. The Middle Ages
• 4. The Sixteenth Century
• 5. 1603–88
• 6. 1689–1815
• 7. Age of Reform and Empire, 1815–1914
• 8. The Twentieth Century
• 9. The British Isles Today
• 10. Conclusions
• Selected Further Reading
• Index