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Profile
 Great
Britain, as distinguished from Britannia Minor, or Brittany, in
France, was not officially so called until James I in 1604 styled
himself king of Great Britain. Great Britain is the largest island
of Europe, the northern portion containing Scotland and the southern
and largest portions dividend between Wales and England.
Scotland has a unique and separate history then does that of England,
although both intertwine time and time again. Scotland is the northern
portion of the island of Great Britain comprising the mainland and
many adjacent islands including the Outer and Inner Hebrides and
the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Roman writers distinguished between
two races of inhabitants in what is now Scotland, the Brythons or
British south of the Forth and Clyde who were allied to the Welsh
and in the north the Caledonians, who were known to the Brythons
as Albans. The Caledonians were later distinguished not Goidel (Gaels)
and Picts. About 500AD a body of Goidelic Celts known as Scots crossed
from Ireland foudning the Kingdom of Dalrada in modern day Argyll.
About 547 the Anglian king, Ida founded the kingdom of Bernicia
in Lothian. The foundations of the ultimate union of Scots and Picts
was laid by the missionary labour of St.Columba who came from Ireland
in 563 Christianising Pict-land. Christianity had already been introduced
among the peoples of Strathclyde and the Picts in Galloway when
St.Ninian laboured at the end of the 4th century in those parts.
The Columbian missionaries were expelled from Lothian after the
victory of Roman Christianity at the Synod of Whitby (664). Religious
conflict followed and so too with permanent settlements along the
coast and in the western islands all of which united loosely for
the first time under Malcolm III (1057-93) is becoming geographically
homogeneous. Over the years an Anglo-Norman model of civil and ecclesiastical
admiration developed a degree of English mannerisms, culture and
adopted the English language, which spread from Lothian into much
of the hinterland with the establishment of burghs and the fostering
of trade. Skirmishes, wars, marriage alliances both from within
and without eventually saw the interests of the Scots coming closer
and closer to England. The difficulties relating to the church in
Edinburgh created the Covenant in Scotland which had the Scots entering
into the English Civil War (1643-44) as allies of the Parliament
to establish uniformity in Church government (Presbyterianism) but
defeats by Cromwell lead to the Church being made Episcopal in government
and pressure on the parliament or pass acts of religious conformity
only to have been repealed by subsequent monarchs. Unpopularity,
intrigues and schemes led to the first unsatisfactory agreement
for a union under William II only reaching fruition under Queen
Anne with the union of the Kingdoms and Parliaments (1707). Uprisings
against the English overlords were repeatedly put down by large
armies from the south until the reign of George III when Scotsmen
began to take part in the political affairs of the United Kingdom
and the end of the eighteenth century was the greatest periods Scottish
intellectual development. The pre-union parliamentary franchise
was maintained until 1832 after which the first Reform Act allowed
people of Scotland adequate representation in the London Parliament.
Since this time Scotland has developed in accordance with the rest
of the United Kingdom.
Wales greatly suffered from the ravages of the Danes but much of
her power was restored by Rhodri Mawr (844), which created a movement
with stimulated in Western Europe toward the codification of laws
and customs by Charlemagne, led to the formation of the Code of
Hywel Dda (for the good) who died in 949. The next Welsh prince
of distinctions was Gruffudd ab Llywelyn (d.1063) a contemporary
and opponent of e4hEnglsih king Harold. With this prince commenced
a long and fierce period of struggle between the Walsh chieftains
and the barons who were helped by King John. The Normans appeared
in 1072 and this along with the support given the Welsh prices to
the barons that led England under Edward I to make a complete conquest
of eh principality of Wales thereby consolidating the power of the
English crown. Prince Llywelyn was killed at Aberddw near Builth
on the Wye in 1282 and his brother David was executed for high treason
the following year. Edward secured the principality by the construction
of castles. The English laws now introduced came in conflict with
the welsh law prevailed casing fruitions between the boroughs and
the county districts which came to the heed in the 15th century
in the revolt of Ownen Glendower who for a time was practically
king of Wales and was an ally of France. After the wars of the Roses
under Henry VII Wales and the country districts became devoted adherents
to the brinish crown end continued so even during the civil war
through to the current day.
The history of England proper begins when it ceased to be a Roman
possession about the beginning of the fifth century A.D. The history
of England is one marked by turbulence leading toward consolidations
of a group of peoples composed of Angles, Kutes, and Saxons who
descended on the greater part of what used to be known as Albion
and who eventually all called themselves English understanding Englatland
as there area of habitation which by the 7th century extended with
little exception from the Forth to the English Channel. Political
and military strife amongst various populations both indigenous
or exogenous created the possibility for William of Normandy (14thOct.1066)
to clam from the local leaders government as lawful king of England
only to have the nobles reclaim and limit his descendents authority
by taking measures to secure their own privileges again and to abridge
the prerogative of the Crown at Runnymede (15th June 1215) with
the signing of the Great Charter (Magna Charta).
Through hundreds of years the conflict and realignment slowly was
modelled the unique characteristic of the English, supported by
the synergies of unification first with the Welsh under Edward I
and then perhaps more significantly with James VI of Scotland and
I of England son of Mary Queen of Scots whose accession to the crown
of England in addition to that of Scotland did much to unite the
two nations which in 1707 the Act of Union bond the Parliaments
and Realms of those two lands into one United Kingdom enhanced by
the Union of Ireland (1801)the synergies creating an aggressive
control working together in a more or less democratic fashion created
the preconditions necessary to embrace Protestantism and thereafter
both industrialisation and subsequently capitalism which Britain
exploited during its colonial period throughout its empire, and
thought the world.
The period of the British Empire was an exceedingly rich period
being only ultimately curtailed by the wars of the twentieth century.
The Second World War saw the UK as recording slower economic growth
per head than most major nations in Europe and in the most total
output it now raked seventh abut the USA. Japan, German, France
and the former Soviet Unions and Italy. Between 1950 and 1973 GDP
growth averaged 3% a year and from 1973-79 only 1.4%. During the
same periods inflation averaged respectively 4.6% and 15.6%. Since
the early 1980's growth imputed in part to the change in attitudes
since Margaret Thatcher and a pronounced shift from state intervention
to a belief in all powerful free market forces.
In resent history the UK has shifted from a predominately manufacturing
industry to service industry accentuating internal regional differences
with the south east more greatly depended upon service industries
centred around London one of Europe's major financial centres.
The discovery and exploitation of North Sea oil came exactly at
the time when Britain found herself virtually wholly reliant on
imported oil to meet her large requirements and allowed her to become
self sufficient by 1980. This self sufficiency however created a
situation wherein the economy was heavily influenced through connections
to the intentional price of barrelled oil playing even to the modern
period not an insignificant role in the government's decisions to
participation in international oil related happenings.
Britain has always had what it has considered a special relationship
with the USA that was strengthened in the wake of the 1991 Gulf
War and may now be either further strengthen, or deteriorating depending
upon the fall-out and settlement of the second Gulf War. Attitudes
towards continental Europe have always been ambivalent some considering
this to be due to its island nation statutes. There is some suggestion
that there is a slow pro-European shift much more emollient to better
and closer European ties amongst the professional and better educated
younger people however the anachronism is still evident of a people
seriously worried that moves towards greater European integration
would be at the cost of having to accept more curtailments to its
own sovereignty.
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