A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND

CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLAND

1. The British Isles. Just off the northwestern coast of Europe lies the British archipelago, the most important single group of islands in the world. But though the British Isles count perhaps more than one thousand separate islands, only two of these are of any considerable size: Great Great Britain Britain and Ireland dominate the entire group.

and Ireland.

The smaller islands, many of which are mere inhabited rocks, are grouped about these two with the greater number lying in a broken, irregular line along the western coast of the larger island of Great Britain. Some of these form The lesser minor groups, such as the Scilly, the Hebrides, islands. and the Orkney Islands. At the same time, several of the more important ones, like the Isle of Wight, Man, and Anglesea, lie detached and alone, though not far from the larger islands. It seems that nature has intended this archipelago to be a political as well as a geographical unit; and the history of England is in a large measure the story of how the unification of the British Isles has been achieved. English history, therefore, concerns itself finally with the whole of Britain; still, its chief field is the southern kingdom on the island of Great Britain.

2. The Island of Great Britain. This island is a large, irregular body of land, nearly six hundred miles in length from north to south. It is widest at the south (the dis- Extent of tance from the Forelands of Kent to Land's End Great Britain. in Cornwall is more than three hundred miles) and gradually grows narrower as it extends northward, until in the region 1 Cheyney, No. 6.

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range.

THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLAND

between the Forth and the Clyde it becomes almost an isthmus with a distance across of less than forty miles. North of this narrow neck are the rough Highlands of Scotland; to the south are the Lowlands, which are virtually an extension of the English plain. The backbone of the island is formed by a low but rough range of highland some twenty miles across, the Pennine The Pennine range, which runs southward from the Scottish Highlands into the center of England where it terminates in the Peak near Derby. A more or less broken range of hills continues the watershed southward and southwestward, until it terminates in the highlands of the Cornish peninsula. The Pennine range is important, not only as a crest which gives direction to some of the larger streams, but also as a barrier which served in earlier times to check the spread of settlement and the progress of invasion. In the many wars between England and Scotland this central hill country determined the routes taken by the invading armies; these will always be found to run near the eastern or the western

coast.

3. The Rivers of Great Britain. As the distance from the watershed to either shore is not great, the island has no rivers of great length; but streams are plentiful and this fact secures the drainage that is necessary to successful grazing and agriculture. Many of these short streams, especially those of northern England, run a swift course; this means water power with its great possibilities in an age of manufacturing by machinery. Most of the rivers of Great Britain discharge their waters through wide channels: the Thames, the Humber, the Severn, and the Clyde furnish the most striking examples of this type of river mouth. There is, consequently, no lack of deep and spacious harbors or other natural facilities for trade and shipping. Near these river mouths have grown up such important commercial towns as Liverpool, Bristol, Hull, Glasgow, and the mighty city of London. In the earlier ages, however, the streams of Great Britain had but slight commercial value: in

The larger streams.

Commercial centers.

THE STONE AGE: EARLY COMMERCE

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those days their chief importance was as highways leading into the interior.

4. The Natural Resources of England. Deep below the beds of the northern rivers lie other sources of wealth and

power in the form of vast mineral deposits, par- Coal and iron. ticularly coal and iron. The natural resources of

this region have made the borders of the Pennine range one of the greatest industrial centers of the earth. Lancashire and the western part of Yorkshire, which for centuries were only sparsely populated, now count their inhabitants by the million. This, however, is a comparatively recent development, less than two centuries old. It was, indeed, the mineral wealth of the island that attracted the merchants of the Mediterranean lands more than two thousand years ago; but it was the tin of Cornwall and Devon,1 not the coal and iron of Wales and northern England.

Tin.

Agriculture.

Before the vast growth in manufacturing in the eighteenth century, England was chiefly an agricultural country. The population was massed on the great plain of the south and southeast, where soil and climate combine to produce luxuriant growth of grass and grain. Occasional ranges of low hills cut this plain; but these, though unsuited to cultivation, have been found to furnish excellent pasturage for sheep.2 The South Downs, a range The trade of hills that runs for more than one hundred miles in wool. parallel to the Channel in Sussex and Hampshire, have given their name to a breed of sheep that is still famous. Another splendid breed was developed on the Cotswold Hills near the Bristol Channel. For several centuries the wool of England formed its most important article of export. The great cloth manufacturing industries of present day England have developed from this early trade in wool; for the time came when it was found more profitable to sell the fleece in the form of woven cloth. 5. The Stone Age: Early Commerce.

Commercial intercourse between England and the Continent seems to have

1 Cheyney, No. 2.

2 Ibid., No. 5.

3 Kipling, The River's Tale.