Clayton Roberts - A History of England, Volume 1: Prehistory to 1714

A HISTORY OF ENGLAND

Volume I

Prehistory to 1714

Clayton Roberts
The Ohio State University
David Roberts
Dartmouth College
Douglas Bisson
Belmont University

Sixth Edition

First published 2014, 2009, 2002

by Pearson Education, Inc.

Published 2016

by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roberts, Clayton, 1923
A history of England / Clayton Roberts, The Ohio State University, David Roberts,
Dartmouth College, Douglas R. Bisson, Belmont University.Sixth edition.
volumes cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-86777-6 (v. 1: alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-205-86777-4 (v. 1: alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-86773-8 (v. 2: alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-205-86773-1 (v. 2: alk. paper) 1. Great BritainHistory. 2. England
Civilization. I. Roberts, David, 1923- II. Bisson, Douglas R., 1954- III. Title.
DA30.R58 2013
942dc23
2013028094

ISBN-13: 978-0-205-86777-6 (pbk)

MORE THAN 30 YEARS have passed since the first edition of A History of England appeared. Fashions and trends in scholarship have changed and this text reflects some of these. Volume one of the sixth edition contains new or revised sections dealing with the experience of women in the middle ages, the development of the legal profession in Angevin England, as well as the origin of the Robin Hood legend and a reassessment of the Glorious Revolution. The life of domestic servants and the criminal subculture of Victorian era are revisited in volume two; an account of the famine in Ireland has been added. The eclipse of Labour after 13 years in office and the installation of the first coalition government since the close of the Second World War are treated in the final chapter.

I am grateful for the support and encouragement of Jeff Lasser, Executive Editor for Social Science and History, and for the assistance of Rob DeGeorge, Associate Editor for Arts and Sciences.

Douglas Bisson
Nashville, Tennesse
April 2013

A LAND SHAPES ITS PEOPLE. Britain is an island and the British are an insular peopleclosely knit, enjoying continuity of development, conscious of their differences from others, proud of those differences. Britain is also a small island, only 90,000 square miles (about the size of Oregon). The Scots inhabit the island north of the Cheviot hills. The Welsh occupy a mountain fastness to the west. The English dwell in the remaining 50,000 square miles (about the size of Alabama), with a boundary that is 90 percent seacoast.

Because the English occupied a small land, clearly denned by sea and mountains, they achieved political unity long before the French or the Spanish. And because the Channel formed a moat defensive to the realm, the English needed only a navy to repulse invaders. Had England possessed a defenseless land frontier to the east and west, as did Prussia, it too might have developed militaristic traditions. But England was defended by the sea and by its navy, and so Englishmen could oppose standing armies as a threat to liberty. The same sea that surrounds England also penetrates into its harbors, bays, channels, estuaries, and rivers. No Englishman lives more than 75 miles from the sea. The English therefore became a maritime people, not afraid to venture upon the sea in search of profit and power. The most important fact in British history may well be that Britain is an island, and the most important date is that momentabout 6000 B.C.E.when the North Sea flooded over the lands that joined Britain to the Continent.

Yet the sea can be a highway as well as a barrier. England, because it lies only 21 miles off Europe, escaped the stagnation that insularity often brings. England's location gave it access to the more advanced civilizations of the Mediterranean world. A succession of invaders and missionaries brought agriculture to England, then iron, then Roman government, and finally Christianity, the Renaissance, and the Reformation. Then in the sixteenth century the center of commerce and culture moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and England, once situated on the distant edge of civilization, found itself near the center. It was now well placed to colonize new lands and become the entrept of the world's trade.

Soil and climate have contributed much to English civilization as well. The lowlands of Britain are uniquely suited for agriculture. The chalk and limestone soil of Salisbury Plain, the Cotswolds, and the

North and South Downs offers excellent grazing for sheep and cattle. The heavy clay of the Weald and the Thames Valley yields rich crops of wheat, especially in Oxfordshire. But the most fertile parts of England are the Midlands and East Anglia, where overlapping layers of limestone, clay, and sand have produced a brown, loamy soil of great richness. Sufficient rainfall and sun cause this soil to yield up its riches. The average rainfall in England is about 30 inches a yearrather more to the west, less to the east. Because the rain is distributed uniformly throughout the year, great works of irrigation and the despotic governments needed to build them were not necessary. Though England lies as far north as Labrador, Canada, prevailing winds from the southwest bring moderate temperatures. The average temperature in July is 63 Fahrenheit, in January, 39. In the west there is not enough sun to grow wheat, but oats thrive there, as do pasture grasses. Wheat and barley are grown in the Midlands and the east, maize only in Essex where the sun shines more often. But though the English have too little sun to grow much maize, they are fortunate in escaping the droughts, floods, hurricanes, and blizzards that strike other lands.