The Story of Britain

by Patrick Dillon

  Many people were angry at the things Margaret Thatcher did. Because she wanted to stop the unions striking, she closed down the coal mines. Villages where miners had dug coal for generations were ruined, and thousands of families lost everything. She wanted everyone to be proud of Britain, so she fought a war to keep the Falkland Islands, one of the last, leftover bits of the empire.

  “She shouldn’t teach people to like war again,” some said. “Haven’t we learned that war is terrible?”

  All the same, Margaret Thatcher did remind everyone how Britain had become rich in the first place, and she did stop the unions using their power unfairly.

  “Britain won’t stay rich just because we want it to,” she argued. “We have to compete with other countries in the world. If we don’t work hard and make money, we’ll soon be poor.”

  And little by little Britain started getting richer again. New buildings were built, and the old ones cleaned. The last scars of the war were healed. At night in British cities you could hear the sound of laughter again, of people drinking, talking and becoming excited – just as they had in the old days before the empire. British businessmen came up with new ideas, and British scientists made new discoveries. In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, and the Internet was born.

  At last politicians tried to sort out how the constitution worked. A new Labour prime minister, Tony Blair, stopped aristocrats from voting in the House of Lords, and Parliament moved a step nearer to proper democracy. Then he turned to Scotland and Wales. For years many Scots and Welsh had complained about the way Britain was governed.

  “Why can’t we run ourselves?” they asked.

  Scotland and England had prospered as one in the empire. But since the empire was over, it was time to think again about how they worked together; and so, after three hundred years, a Scottish Parliament was elected and the Scots took over their own affairs again. Wales had never had its own parliament, and never been treated properly as the fourth nation of Britain, and at last that was put right. An assembly was built in Cardiff so the Welsh could elect representatives to discuss their own affairs.

  In Northern Ireland, after many years of violence, known as the Troubles, the fighting finally came to an end. The terrorists announced that they would stop bombing, and the republicans sat down with the Irish and British governments to discuss how Northern Ireland should be run in future. Slowly peace came to the provinces of the north.

  Meanwhile, the people of the Irish Republic had grown richer, now they were independent. The bitterness of the old days began to fade. They could live in peace and dignity with the British at last. And very gradually the new inhabitants of Britain – black, Asian or Chinese – were accepted as equal citizens, free to play their part in Britain’s story.

  It almost felt as if the British Empire had been a long dream. And the people of Britain had woken up to find themselves renewed and different, ready for the challenges that lay ahead.

  What Next?

  HISTORY never stops. This book doesn’t have an end.

  Once, all the stories you have just read weren’t history; they were things that were happening to people like you.

  Saxon boys heard the news that the Normans had won the Battle of Hastings and wondered what it meant for them. People in Yorkshire heard that King Charles I had been executed and wondered if the civil wars would go on, and whether Britain would be a republic for ever. When children in Coventry cowered in air-raid shelters with German bombs exploding above them, they didn’t know if Coventry would even exist in future, if Britain itself would survive or if everyone would be killed by bombs.

  They didn’t know what the future held, and nor do we. By the time you have finished reading this book, there will be even more stories to tell. I don’t know what they are, but I think I can guess what some of them will be about.

  Perhaps, in the years to come, there will be more change in the way the people of Britain and Ireland govern themselves. Our relationship with Europe might shift; there might be change in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The important thing is that the people of Britain and Ireland share these islands in peace, remembering the stories, both good and bad, they have written together.

  In 1989 the Cold War came to an end. People in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Russia were fed up living under the communists. They could see countries in the west getting richer and richer. Men and women in West Germany and France were allowed to say what they liked, read what books they chose, and travel where they pleased. Why couldn’t everyone be as free as them?

  In the communist countries of Europe citizens began demonstrating against the police. In Berlin, they climbed up onto the wall the communists had built between east and west, and pulled it down. One by one, the communist governments resigned. Although China remained communist, the great rivalry between democracy and communism was over.

  That left America by far the strongest country in the world, and too much power always spoils people. Instead of using its power wisely, America began wars and angered its friends. Once, Americans had been loved all over the world; now, many started to hate them.

  In particular some Muslims hated America for supporting Israel, the Jewish country that had been established in Palestine in the middle of their lands. Palestine was where the stories of the Jewish and Christian holy books took place. The British ruled it at the end of the Second World War, and because the Jews had suffered so terribly in the Holocaust, Britain and America agreed to give them a home there. But to do it they drove away the Muslim Arabs who had lived in Palestine for centuries, and after that many Muslims distrusted the west.

  “We want nothing to do with America,” they said. And they went back to studying the Koran, and praying for a return to the old ways.

  Religion can be dangerous; it can persuade people to do things they’d never normally consider. A few fanatics became terrorists and destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. Some British Muslims even set off bombs in London, killing innocent passers-by. Those arguments haven’t ended, and wars will go on being fought over them.

  But the greatest challenge of all is what is happening to our planet, earth. In the industrial revolution people started digging up coal and burning it in steam engines. To make electricity, even more coal was dug up, along with oil and gas, to run power stations. Cars and aeroplanes were invented, and they burned oil as well.

  “What marvellous inventions!” everyone said. “We’ve never had so much power before!”

  “We’ve never been able to travel so easily!”

  “To live so comfortably!”

  No one realized that burning coal, oil and gas was doing terrible damage. Released into the air, the carbon locked up in them began to heat up the earth. Because of that the climate has started to change. Everywhere is getting hotter. The ice caps at the North and South Poles are melting, and the oceans rising. Perhaps people have been too clever for their own good. Perhaps our inventions, which have made life so much better, will end up destroying us.

  Or perhaps we will find new answers to our problems. Perhaps we will make power from the wind and sun, and start to look after our countryside, which we have farmed for thousands of years. Perhaps we will learn to share our wealth more fairly. Perhaps we will remember how to respect each others’ beliefs.

  And then the people of Britain and Ireland can go on living peacefully in these islands, telling the stories that made us what we are, and writing the new story that will be our future.

  TIMELINE

  1909 Louis Blériot becomes the first man to fly across the Channel.

  1914–1918 Britain and France fight the Great War against Germany. In 1916 thousands are killed and wounded at the Battle of the Somme.

  1916 Irish soldiers try to start a rebellion in the Easter Rising.

  1917 Lenin and the communists start a revolution in Russia, which they rename the USSR or Soviet Union.

  1918 Women are finally allowed to vote, and the vote is give
n to all men as well, so Britain becomes a true democracy. A year later, Nancy Astor becomes the first woman MP.

  1919 John Alcock, from Manchester, and Arthur Brown, from Glasgow, are the first to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

  1922 Treaty passed to make Ireland independent as the Irish Free State, but its first prime minister, Michael Collins, is killed the same year, and a civil war goes on until 1923.

  1926 Unions call a general strike, but it lasts only ten days.

  1929 The Wall Street Crash starts the Great Depression in America. It soon spreads across the world.

  1933 Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany.

  1936 Unemployed men from Jarrow march to London to demand work.

  1938 Neville Chamberlain agrees to let Hitler take over part of Czechoslovakia.

  1939–1945 The Second World War.

  1940 The Germans attack Holland, Belgium and France. The British army is rescued from Dunkirk by “little ships” sailing across the Channel. Hitler fails to beat the RAF in the Battle of Britain, and starts to bomb British cities instead.

  1941 Hitler attacks the USSR, which becomes an ally of Britain. Then the Japanese attack the USA at Pearl Harbor, so the Americans join the Allies as well.

  1942 Montgomery and the Desert Rats defeat the Germans in Africa at the Battle of El Alamein.

  1943 British aeroplanes bomb German cities.

  1944 The British and Americans land in France on D-Day, and go on to capture Paris and free France, whose resistance fighters have been struggling against the Germans for four years.

  1945 Berlin, the German capital, is captured, Hitler commits suicide and Germany surrenders. The Americans drop atom bombs on two Japanese cities, and the Japanese surrender as well.

  1945–1951 The Labour government led by Clement Attlee nationalizes the railways and coal mines, and Nye Bevan starts the National Health Service.

  1947 Gandhi wins independence for India, which is divided into two countries, India and Pakistan. Later, a third country, Bangladesh, is formed as well. In the following years, the rest of the British Empire wins independence.

  1945–1991 During the Cold War, America and the west of Europe are separated from the USSR, which runs a communist empire in the east of Europe, by the “iron curtain”. Each side makes thousands of nuclear weapons, but fortunately they are never used.

  1948 The Empire Windrush arrives in London from Jamaica, bringing West Indian immigrants to Britain. In the years that follow, immigrants will arrive from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Africa and China.

  1952 Elizabeth II becomes queen.

  1962 The Beatles are formed in Liverpool, and go on to become the world’s biggest band.

  1966 Fighting begins between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

  1969 The American astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to set foot on the moon.

  1973 Britain joins the European Union, which is known at the time as the European Economic Community or Common Market.

  1979 Margaret Thatcher, a Conservative, becomes the first woman prime minister of Britain. Five years later, she takes on the coal miners, who go on strike but are forced to return to work.

  1989 The Berlin Wall falls and the communist countries of eastern Europe join the west. Two years later the communists lose power in the USSR, which changes its name back to Russia.

  1990 Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.

  1998 The Good Friday agreement ends the troubles in Northern Ireland.

  1999 The new Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly meet for the first time. In the same year, aristocrats lose their place in the House of Lords.

  INDEX

  A

  aeroplanes 288–9, 303, 340

  Battle of Britain 305–7

  Afghanistan 252

  Agincourt, Battle of 74, 84

  Albert, Prince 246, 247, 255, 272

  Alcock, John 288, 340

  Alfred the Great 14, 15, 18

  America, discovery of 80, 84

  American colonies 124, 139, 198

  American Revolution 203–4, 224

  Anderson, Elizabeth Garrett 267

  Anglo-Saxons 11–15, 16, 18, 23, 25–9

  Anne of Cleves 103–4, 130

  Anne, Queen 168, 169, 184, 186, 187, 224

  Arbroath, Declaration of 58, 84

  aristocrats 191, 230, 335

  Arkwright, Richard 237

  Armstrong, Neil 327, 341

  Astor, Nancy 287, 340

  atomic bombs 319–20, 326

  Attlee, Clement 321, 341

  Augustine 13, 18

  Australia 201–2, 224

  B

  Bacon, Sir Francis 156–7, 173

  Baird, John Logie 329

  Balliol, John 54, 83

  Ban, Donald 33, 83

  Bangladesh 324

  Bank of England 189

  Banks, Sir Joseph 201

  Bannockburn, Battle of 57–8, 84

  Beatles 275, 329, 341

  Becket, Thomas 22, 36–8, 71, 83

  Bede 13, 14, 18

  Bell, Alexander Graham 287

  Berners-Lee, Tim 335, 341

  Bevan, Nye 274, 322, 341

  Bill of Rights 170

  Bismarck, Otto von 277

  Black Death 66–7, 68, 84, 159

  Black, Joseph 206

  black people

  immigrants 333–4

  slavery 179–82, 221–2

  The Black Prince 20, 64–5, 68, 84

  Blair, Tony 335

  Blenheim Palace 186

  Blériot, Louis 288, 340

  Bloody Assizes 167

  Boleyn, Anne 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 112, 130

  Bonnie Prince Charlie 194–6, 224

  books 81–2

  Bosworth Field, Battle of 79, 84

  Bothwell, Earl of 116

  Boudicca 11

  Boycott, Charles 261

  Boyle, Robert 157

  Boyne, Battle of the 170, 174, 211

  British Empire 198–200, 201–2, 205, 252–8, 323, 325, 336

  and Ireland 290, 291

  Brontë, Charlotte 247

  Brown, Arthur 288, 340

  Bruce, Robert 20, 56–8, 84, 114

  Brunel, Isambard Kingdom 226, 239

  Byron, Lord 177, 223

  C

  Cade, Jack 75

  Caesar, Julius 10, 15, 18

  Calcutta, Black Hole of 197

  Calvin, John 98, 104, 114

  Canada 198, 204

  Catherine of Aragon 99, 100, 101, 104, 108, 130

  cathedral architecture 36

  Catholicism 108–9, 110

  and Charles II 164–5

  and Elizabeth I 112–13

  end of laws against 233–4

  in Ireland 211–12, 233–4, 331–2

  and James II 167–9

  and science 156

  Cavaliers 143, 144

  Caxton, William 81–2

  Chadwick, Edwin 245

  Chamberlain, Neville 301, 302, 303, 340

  Charles I, King 140–2, 143–4, 146, 147, 148, 164, 173

  Charles II, King 149–50, 151–2, 157, 163–5, 167, 173–4

  the Restoration 154–5

  Charles V, Emperor 89

  Chartists 263, 272

  Chaucer, Geoffrey 21

  The Canterbury Tales 71, 82, 84

  child labour 241

  China 126

  cholera 245

  Christian Church

  Anglo-Saxons 13, 18

  Catholicism 109, 110, 112–13

  and Henry II 35, 36–8

  Puritans 136

  the Reformation 96, 97–8, 101, 130

  Romans 11

  church architecture 36, 80, 321

  Church of England 104–5, 112, 130, 136, 164, 165, 167. 168, 172

  Churchill, John, Duke of

  Marlborough 186, 224

  Churchill, Winston 274, 301, 303, 305, 307, 316

  civil wa
rs 143–5, 146–7, 156, 213

  Clarkson, Thomas 222

  climate change 338–9

  Clive, Robert 199, 224

  Cnut 15, 16, 18

  Cold War 326–8, 329, 337, 341

  Collins, Michael 291, 340

  Columbus, Christopher 80, 84, 124, 151

  communists 263–4, 292–5, 298, 300, 326, 327, 337, 340

  compasses 48–9

  Conservatives 265

  Cook, Captain James 176, 201, 224

  Covenanters 141, 143, 144, 146, 149–50, 165, 173

  Coventry 309

  Cranmer, Thomas 101, 105, 110, 130

  Crécy, Battle of 63, 64, 84

  crime and criminals 191, 192–3, 202

  Crimean War 248–51, 272

  Cromwell, Oliver 144, 146, 147, 149, 150–2, 164, 173, 213

  Cromwell, Thomas 100, 101, 104, 130

  Crusades 39, 40–1, 42, 83

  Culloden, Battle of 195–6

  Cumberland, Duke of 195, 196

  Czechoslovakia 301, 305, 337

  D

  D-Day 316–17

  Da Vinci, Leonardo 89–90

  Dalrymple, John 183, 184

  Danes 14, 15, 18

  Darby, Abraham 237

  Darnley, Lord 115–16

  dates 15–16

  Davison, Emily 268

  De Montfort, Simon 46–7, 50–1, 83, 140

  Defoe, Daniel 190

  Despenser, Hugh 59, 60

  Dickens, Charles 244

  Diggers 149

  Disraeli, Benjamin 227, 255, 265, 272

  Domesday Book 27–8, 83

  Drake, Sir Francis 87, 119–20, 124, 125, 126

  Dudley, Robert 113

  Dutch wars 163, 173–4

  E

  East India Company 126, 130, 199–200, 205

  Edinburgh 205

  Edward the Confessor 16, 17, 18

  Edward I, King 47, 50–5, 56–7, 62, 72, 83, 140

  Edward II, King 57–8, 59–61, 72, 84

  Edward III, King 60, 62–4, 68, 72, 79, 84

  Edward IV, King 75–6, 77, 84, 130