Kingdom of England | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 886–1707 (1649–1660: Commonwealth) | |||||||||
 Royal Arms (from the 12th century)
| |||||||||
| Motto: "Dieu et mon droit" (French) "God and my right"[1] (from the 15th century) | |||||||||
 Location of the Kingdom, 1558–1707 (green) | |||||||||
 English overseas possessions in 1700 | |||||||||
| Capital |
| ||||||||
| Official languages |
| ||||||||
| Regional languages | |||||||||
| Religion |
| ||||||||
| Demonym(s) | English | ||||||||
| Government |
| ||||||||
| Monarch | |||||||||
• c. 886–899 (first) | Alfred the Great | ||||||||
• 1702–1707 (last) | Anne | ||||||||
| Legislature | Parliament | ||||||||
| House of Lords | |||||||||
| House of Commons | |||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Adoption of the title Rex Anglorum by Alfred the Great | c. 886 | ||||||||
| 14 October 1066 | |||||||||
| May 1169 – May 1177 | |||||||||
| 15 June 1215 | |||||||||
| 1535–1542 | |||||||||
| 24 March 1603 | |||||||||
| 11 December 1688 | |||||||||
| 1 May 1707 | |||||||||
| Currency | Pound sterling | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | United Kingdom | ||||||||
| History of England |
|---|
 |
 England portal |
The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the early tenth century, when it was unified from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, which would later become the United Kingdom. The Kingdom of England was among the most powerful states in Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.
Beginning in the year 886[3] Alfred the Great reoccupied London from the Danish Vikings and after this event he declared himself King of the Anglo-Saxons, until his death in 899. During the course of the early tenth century, the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were united by Alfred's descendants Edward the Elder (reigned 899–924) and Æthelstan (reigned 924–939) to form the Kingdom of the English. In 927, Æthelstan conquered the last remaining Viking kingdom, York, making him the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of the whole of England. In 1016, the kingdom became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway. The Norman Conquest in 1066 led to the transfer of the English capital city and chief royal residence from the Anglo-Saxon one at Winchester to Westminster, and the City of London quickly established itself as England's largest and principal commercial centre.[4]
Histories of the Kingdom of England from the Norman Conquest of 1066 conventionally distinguish periods named after successive ruling dynasties: Norman/Angevin 1066–1216, Plantagenet 1216–1485, Tudor 1485–1603 and Stuart 1603–1707 (interrupted by the Interregnum of 1649–1660). All English monarchs after 1066 ultimately descend from the Normans, and the distinction of the Plantagenets is conventional—beginning with Henry II (reigned 1154–1189) as from that time, the Angevin kings became "more English in nature"; the houses of Lancaster and York are both Plantagenet cadet branches, the Tudor dynasty claimed descent from Edward III via John Beaufort and James VI and I of the House of Stuart claimed descent from Henry VII via Margaret Tudor.
The completion of the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1284 put Wales under the control of the English crown. Edward III (reigned 1327–1377) transformed the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe; his reign also saw vital developments in legislation and government—in particular the evolution of the English Parliament. From the 1340s, English claims to the French throne were held in pretense, but after the Hundred Years' War and the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses in 1455, the English were no longer in any position to pursue their French claims and lost all their land on the continent, except for Calais. After the turmoils of the Wars of the Roses, the Tudor dynasty ruled during the English Renaissance and again extended English monarchical power beyond England proper, achieving the full union of England and the Principality of Wales under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Henry VIII oversaw the English Reformation, and his daughter Elizabeth I (reigned 1558–1603) the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, meanwhile establishing England as a great power and laying the foundations of the British Empire via colonization of the Americas.
The accession of James VI and I in 1603 resulted in the Union of the Crowns, with the Stuart dynasty ruling the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. Under the Stuarts, England plunged into civil war, which culminated in the execution of Charles I in 1649. The monarchy returned in 1660, but the Civil War had established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without the consent of Parliament. This concept became legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. From this time the kingdom of England, as well as its successor state the United Kingdom, functioned in effect as a constitutional monarchy.[a] On 1 May 1707, under the terms of the Acts of Union 1707, the parliaments, and therefore Kingdoms, of both England and Scotland were mutually abolished. Their assets and estates united 'for ever, into the Kingdom by the name of Great Britain', forming the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Parliament of Great Britain.[5][6]
- ^ "The Royal Coat of Arms". The Royal Family. 15 January 2016. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
- ^ Carey 2011, p. 41.
- ^ Keynes 1998, p. 23-24.
- ^ London, 800–1216: The Shaping of a City, "...rivalry between City and government, between a commercial capital in the City and the political capital of quite a different empire in Westminster.", accessed November 2013.
- ^ "Acts of Union 1707", UK Parliament, accessed 27 January 2011.
- ^ "Making the Act of Union 1707" (PDF). Scottish Parliament. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 May 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).